ly, like you always do.'

Lydia stood behind the chair again, and the laughing caress was
exchanged.

'I should stay,' Thyrza went on, 'if it was only to have you do my
hair. I do so like to feel your soft hands!'

'Soft hands! Great coarse things. Just look!'

She took one of Thyrza's, and held it beside her own. The difference
was noticeable enough; Lydia's was not ill-shapen, but there were marks
on it of all the rough household work which she had never permitted her
sister to do. Thyrza's was delicate, supple, beautiful in its kind as
her face.

'I don't care!' she said laughing. 'It's a good, soft, sleepy hand.'

'Sleepy, child!'

'I mean it always makes me feel dozy when it's doing my hair.'

There was no more cloud between them. The morning passed on with
sisterly talk. Lydia had wisely refrained from exacting promises; she
hoped to resume the subject before long--together with another that was
in her mind. Thyrza, too, had something to speak of, but could not
bring herself to it as yet.

Though it was so hot, they had to keep a small fire for cooking the
dinner. This meal consisted of a small piece of steak, chosen from the
odds and ends thrown together on the front of a butcher's shop, and a
few potatoes. It was not always they had meat; yet they never went
hungry, and, in comparing herself with others she knew, it sometimes
made Lydia a little unhappy to think how well she lived.

Then began the unutterable dreariness of a Sunday afternoon. From the
lower part of the house sounded the notes of a concertina; it was Mr.
Jarmey who played. He had the habit of doing so whilst half asleep,
between dinner and tea. With impartiality he passed from strains of
popular hymnody to the familiar ditties of the music hall, lavishing on
each an excess of sentiment. He shook pathetically on top notes and
languished on final chords. A dolorous music!

The milkman came along the street. He was followed by a woman who
wailed 'wa-ater-creases!' Then the concertina once more possessed the
stillness. Few pedestrians were abroad; the greater part of the male
population of Lambeth slumbered after the baked joint and flagon of
ale. Yet here and there a man in his shirt-sleeves leaned forth
despondently from a window or sat in view within, dozing over the
Sunday paper.

A rattling of light wheels drew near, and a nasal voice cried
''Okey-pokey! 'Okey-'okey-'okey Penny a lump!' It was the man who sold
ice-cream. He came