tea, because it was her 'evening out.' Alice's hair
was black and her skin was pale, almost of the olive tinge, and she lay
asleep, her head resting on one arm, reminding Mrs. Darnell of a queer
print of a 'Tired Bacchante' that she had seen long ago in a shop window
in Upper Street, Islington. And a cracked bell was ringing; that meant
five minutes to eight, and nothing done.

She touched the girl gently on the shoulder, and only smiled when her
eyes opened, and waking with a start, she got up in sudden confusion.
Mrs. Darnell went back to her room and dressed slowly while her husband
still slept, and it was only at the last moment, as she fastened her
cherry-coloured bodice, that she roused him, telling him that the bacon
would be overdone unless he hurried over his dressing.

Over the breakfast they discussed the question of the spare room all
over again. Mrs. Darnell still admitted that the plan of furnishing it
attracted her, but she could not see how it could be done for the ten
pounds, and as they were prudent people they did not care to encroach on
their savings. Edward was highly paid, having (with allowances for extra
work in busy weeks) a hundred and forty pounds a year, and Mary had
inherited from an old uncle, her godfather, three hundred pounds, which
had been judiciously laid out in mortgage at 4-1/2 per cent. Their total
income, then, counting in Aunt Marian's present, was a hundred and
fifty-eight pounds a year, and they were clear of debt, since Darnell
had bought the furniture for the house out of money which he had saved
for five or six years before. In the first few years of his life in the
City his income had, of course, been smaller, and at first he had lived
very freely, without a thought of laying by. The theatres and
music-halls had attracted him, and scarcely a week passed without his
going (in the pit) to one or the other; and he had occasionally bought
photographs of actresses who pleased him. These he had solemnly burnt
when he became engaged to Mary; he remembered the evening well; his
heart had been so full of joy and wonder, and the landlady had
complained bitterly of the mess in the grate when he came home from the
City the next night. Still, the money was lost, as far as he could
recollect, ten or twelve shillings; and it annoyed him all the more to
reflect that if he had put it by, it would have gone far towards the
purchase of an 'Orient' carpet in brilliant colours. Then there had b