gs were over, and Mrs. Gibbs had retired with the
hospitable intention of "putting on the kettle," Fanny beckoned
mysteriously to Toni to mount the narrow stairs leading to the room the
girls had formerly shared in common.

Toni mounted obediently; and for a second she forgot to wonder what Miss
Gibbs' extraordinary signals might imply, for a sudden feeling of
gratitude to Owen for having lifted her out of this dingy atmosphere
flooded her impressionable nature.

Surely when she too had slept beneath this low ceiling the room had not
been quite so small, so stuffy. The wall-paper was the one she and Fanny
had themselves chosen years ago, but it was oddly faded and dirty now,
and in one corner a great piece had peeled off, hanging in strips and
disclosing the plaster behind. The common furniture, too--the rickety
deal dressing-table, the broken chair, the unpainted iron
bedsteads--thinking of her own airy, spacious, bedroom with its shining
toilet-table, its linen bedspread, its big windows opening on to a view
of the river and the fields beyond, Toni wondered how she had ever
endured life in these sordid, depressing surroundings.

Luckily Fanny was too full of her news to notice Toni's involuntary
shudder as she looked round the close little bedroom; and barely waiting
to shut the door she blurted out her tidings.

"Toni, you remember Lennie Dowson--the fellow who was sweet on you?"

Toni nodded casually, her eyes still roaming round her, and Fanny felt
vaguely disappointed that the subject was so evidently uninteresting.

"Well, he's going to Sutton, three miles from Willowhurst, and I truly
believe it's because he wants to be near you!"

She had succeeded in arousing Toni's interest at last.

"Leonard Dowson? Do you mean the dentist? But what on earth will he do
in Sutton?"

"Look at people's teeth, I suppose," returned Miss Gibbs practically.
"He was in night before last, and he told Ma he was sick of London, and
this was a change for the better. It is a town, isn't it. And I s'pose
people by the river have toothache same as us, don't they?"

"It is a town--of a sort," said Toni, "but I shouldn't have thought Mr.
Dowson would have settled there. He always said London was the one place
in the world for him."

"That was when you were there," returned Fanny sagely. "I don't b'lieve
he's ever got over you, Toni. Ma says she never saw such a change in
anyone, and you know he was always fond of you. That's why