On a Saturday afternoon of the following August, Hilda was sitting at a
book in the basement parlour of "Cannon's Boarding-house" in Preston
Street. She heard, through the open window, several pairs of feet
mounting wearily to the front door, and then the long remote tinkling of
the bell. Within the house there was no responsive sound; but from the
porch came a clearing of throats, a muttering, impatient and yet
resigned, and a vague shuffling. After a long pause the bell rang again;
and then the gas globe over Hilda's head vibrated for a moment to
footsteps in the hall, and the front door was unlatched. She could not
catch the precise question; but the reply of Louisa, the chambermaid--
haughty, scornful, and negligently pitying--was quite clear:

"Sorry, sir. We're full up. We've had to refuse several this very
day.... No! I couldn't rightly tell you where.... You might try No. 51,
'Homeleigh' as they call it; but we're full up. Good afternoon, sir, 'd
afternoon 'm."

The door banged arrogantly. The feet redescended to the pavement, and
Hilda, throwing a careless glance at the window, saw two men and a woman
pass melancholy down the hot street with their hand-luggage.

And although she condemned and despised the flunkey-souled Louisa, who
would have abased herself with sickly smiles and sweet phrases before
the applicants, if the house had needed custom; although in her mind she
was saying curtly to the mature Louisa: "It's a good thing Mr. Cannon
didn't hear you using that tone to customers, my girl;" nevertheless,
she could not help feeling somewhat as Louisa felt. It was indubitably
agreeable to hear a prosperous door closed on dusty and disappointed
holiday-makers, and to realize, in her tranquil retreat, that she was
part of a very thriving and successful concern.

II

George Cannon, in a light and elegant summer suit, passed slowly in
front of the window, and, looking for Hilda in her accustomed place, saw
her and nodded. Surprised by the unusual gesture, she moved uneasily and
blushed; and as she did so, she asked herself resentfully: "Why do I
behave like this? I'm only his clerk, and I shall never be anything else
but his clerk; and yet I do believe I'm getting worse instead of
better." George Cannon skipped easily up to the porch; he had a
latchkey, but before he could put it into the keyhole Louisa had flown
down the stairs and opened the door to him; she must have been on the
watch from an upper f