en to that. Oh, we certainly shall not. But it helps
one to know that, strictly speaking, we are _independent_ for another
six months.'

That word gave Virginia an obvious thrill.

'Independent! Oh, Alice, what a blessed thing is independence! Do you
know, my dear, I am afraid I have not exerted myself as I might have
done to find a new place. These comfortable lodgings, and the pleasure
of seeing Monica once a week, have tempted me into idleness. It isn't
really my wish to be idle; I know the harm it does me; but oh! if one
could work in a home of one's own!'

Alice had a startled, apprehensive look, as if her sister were touching
on a subject hardly proper for discussion, or at least dangerous.

'I'm afraid it's no use thinking of that, dear,' she answered awkwardly.

'No use; no use whatever. I am wrong to indulge in such thoughts.'

'Whatever happens, my dear,' said Alice presently, with all the
impressiveness of tone she could command, 'we must never entrench upon
our capital--never--never!'

'Oh, never! If we grow old and useless--'

'If no one will give us even board and lodging for our services--'

'If we haven't a friend to look to,' Alice threw in, as though they
were answering each other in a doleful litany, 'then indeed we shall be
glad that nothing tempted us to entrench on our capital! It would just
keep us'--her voice sank--'from the workhouse.'

After this each took up a volume, and until teatime they read quietly.

From six to nine in the evening they again talked and read alternately.
Their conversation was now retrospective; each revived memories of what
she had endured in one or the other house of bondage. Never had it been
their lot to serve 'really nice' people--this phrase of theirs was
anything but meaningless. They had lived with more or less well-to-do
families in the lower middle class--people who could not have inherited
refinement, and had not acquired any, neither proletarians nor
gentlefolk, consumed with a disease of vulgar pretentiousness, inflated
with the miasma of democracy. It would have been but a natural result
of such a life if the sisters had commented upon it in a spirit
somewhat akin to that of their employers; but they spoke without
rancour, without scandalmongering. They knew themselves superior to the
women who had grudgingly paid them, and often smiled at recollections
which would have moved the servile mind to venomous abuse.

At nine o'clock they took a cup o