y little street, and you'll be glad
to get out of it, though even Belgrave Square will seem sooty and
confined after Lomore.'

It was not as tactful a speech as it might have been, and was received
in such freezing silence by Stella that his wife did not dare to second
the invitation, and the two girls were deposited at their new abode
without any promise of meeting again, as far as Stella was concerned. As
for Vava, she shook hands with Mr. Jones very warmly, and kissed Mrs.
Jones; but neither did she say anything but good-bye, which, truth to
say, she said in such a cheerful tone as to surprise her sister.

But the cheeriness soon subsided at sight of their rooms, for which the
landlady, impressed by the grandeur of their arrival, hastened to
apologise. 'And where all that luggage that arrived yesterday is to go I
don't know; I've no place for it here, miss; so I just told the
railway-man to keep all but these two port-manteaus at their
storerooms,' she added.

'Perhaps that was best,' said Stella quietly. And then, the woman having
taken her departure, she sat down on the bed, a large double one, which
filled up half the dingy room, and looked round the apartment and into
the tiny sitting-room with distaste.

'It's horrid, and--one thing's certain, I won't have that man staring at
me!' cried Vava impulsively, jumping up, and mounting on a chair in
order to take down a large portrait of a stolid-faced policeman.

'Vava, come down and leave it alone! What can you be thinking of? That
is the landlady's husband, no doubt. Mrs. Monro said he was a policeman,
and so we should be safe with him. You will hurt her feelings!' cried
Stella.

'Then let her have him in her own bedroom. How can I sleep with him
looking as if he were going to take me to prison all the time?' said
Vava. However, she did not take 'him' down, but came down herself; and
as the Joneses had thoughtfully had a substantial tea before they
deposited their passengers, the girls decided that they would want
nothing that night but a glass of milk, and went out in the dusk to see
what they could of London, and get out of their close and confined
lodgings.

'It went to my heart, Monty, to leave those two poor girls in that
dreadful place. This world's very unfair somehow,' said Mrs. Jones, as
she and her husband entered their own handsome house.

'And yet you were not too pleased at my offer about the furniture, and
wanted to make me force them to sell