of London.

CHAPTER V.

THE NEW LIFE.

'But, Stella, you have not to be at your office till ten o'clock! What
will you do with yourself for this half-hour?' asked Vava next morning
as her sister left her at the gates of the City School for Girls five
minutes before school opened, which was half-past nine.

The two sisters had walked together to the City along the Embankment. To
girls used to tramping miles over the moors, the walk was nothing,
though they found that the pavements tired their feet.

'I shall take a walk, or go into a shop and have a bun,' replied Stella,
for on second thoughts she shunned a walk alone through these streets
crowded with men, who looked curiously, though not disrespectfully, at
the tall, slight, beautiful girl, who walked with a leisurely,
unbusiness-like air through the City.

'Yes, go and have a bun, and I will come to the office at half-past
three and wait for you in the sitting-room,' said Vava, who felt for her
sister being stared at so.

'I don't think there will be much of a sitting-room to wait in, Vava;
but when you come to fetch me, just take one of your lesson-books and
read quietly until I come down; and, remember, don't talk to any one,'
Stella admonished her sister.

Vava looked astonished and as if she were going to argue the question;
but the school-bell rang at that moment, and she ran off, turning round
to wave her hand to her sister, who stood watching her until she joined
a group of girls, with whom she seemed to be conversing in a most
friendly way, and not in the least as if it were the first time in her
life that she had ever seen them.

With a sigh, Stella turned away; she could not be like that, she could
not help being stiff and reserved. Vava was quite different, and her
elder sister found herself hoping fearfully that she would not get too
intimate with these 'City girls.' However, she consoled herself with the
thought that it could only be in school-hours, and that even in the
dinner interval she would be with the young teacher who was to take
special care of her, and who, at all events, would be an educated woman.

And then, as she felt somehow that her sauntering walk attracted too
much attention, she turned into a baker's shop, and, addressing the
pleasant-faced woman behind the counter, said, 'May I have a bun,
please, and rest here for half-an-hour until my office opens?'

'Indeed you may, miss, and if you like to step into my parlour