he was trying
to discover _where_ seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be
hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft
of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of
the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling
last season's skirt at all. "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she
had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match
it, and I _might_ be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back
so that it would not be seen."

She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion. She was such a
simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the
aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured,
childlike smile. A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a
little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment. As she got
out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp
bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was
positively radiant. It was not only her smile which was childlike, her
face itself was childlike for a woman of her age and size. She was
thirty-four and a well-set-up creature, with fine square shoulders and a
long small waist and good hips. She was a big woman, but carried herself
well, and having solved the problem of obtaining, through marvels of
energy and management, one good dress a year, wore it so well, and
changed her old ones so dexterously, that she always looked rather
smartly dressed. She had nice, round, fresh cheeks and nice, big, honest
eyes, plenty of mouse-brown hair and a short, straight nose. She was
striking and well-bred-looking, and her plenitude of good-natured
interest in everybody, and her pleasure in everything out of which
pleasure could be wrested, gave her big eyes a fresh look which made her
seem rather like a nice overgrown girl than a mature woman whose life
was a continuous struggle with the narrowest of mean fortunes.

She was a woman of good blood and of good education, as the education of
such women goes. She had few relatives, and none of them had any
intention of burdening themselves with her pennilessness. They were
people of excellent family, but had quite enough to do to keep their
sons in the army or navy and find husbands for their daughters. When
Emily's mother had died and her small annuity had died with her, none of
them had wanted the care of a big