ent
employees to remain at home on Sunday; but they were strongly
recommended to make the utmost possible use of that weekly vacation.
Herein, no doubt, appeared a laudable regard for their health. Young
people, especially young women, who are laboriously engaged in a shop
for thirteen hours and a half every weekday, and on Saturday for an
average of sixteen, may be supposed to need a Sabbath of open air.
Messrs. Scotcher and Co. acted like conscientious men in driving them
forth immediately after breakfast, and enjoining upon them not to
return until bedtime. By way of well-meaning constraint, it was
directed that only the very scantiest meals (plain bread and cheese, in
fact) should be supplied to those who did not take advantage of the
holiday.

Messrs. Scotcher and Co. were large-minded men. Not only did they
insist that the Sunday ought to be used for bodily recreation, but they
had no objection whatever to their young friends taking a stroll after
closing-time each evening. Nay, so generous and confiding were they,
that to each young person they allowed a latchkey. The air of Walworth
Road is pure and invigorating about midnight; why should the reposeful
ramble be hurried by consideration for weary domestics?

Monica always felt too tired to walk after ten o'clock; moreover, the
usual conversation in the dormitory which she shared with five other
young women was so little to her taste that she wished to be asleep
when the talkers came up to bed. But on Sunday she gladly followed the
counsel of her employers. If the weather were bad, the little room at
Lavender Hill offered her a retreat; when the sun shone, she liked to
spend a part of the day in free wandering about London, which even yet
had not quite disillusioned her.

And to-day it shone brightly. This was her birthday, the completion of
her one-and-twentieth year. Alice and Virginia of course expected her
early in the morning, and of course they were all to dine together--at
the table measuring three feet by one and a half; but the afternoon and
evening she must have to herself The afternoon, because a few hours of
her sister's talk invariably depressed her; and the evening, because
she had an appointment to keep. As she left the big ugly
'establishment' her heart beat cheerfully, and a smile fluttered about
her lips. She did not feel very well, but that was a matter of course;
the ride in an omnibus would perhaps make her head clearer.

Monica's face w