establishment. Please sit down, Miss--dear me, I haven't asked you
your name yet."

"My name is Pellissier," Anna said, "Anna Pellissier."

"I am Mrs. White," the lady in black satin remarked. "It makes one
feel quite awkward to mention such a thing, but after all I think that
it is best for both parties. Could you give me any references?"

"There is Mr. Courtlaw," Anna said, "and my solicitors, Messrs. Le
Mercier and Stowe of St. Heliers. They are rather a long way off, but
you could write to them. I am sorry that I do not know any one in
London. But after all, Mrs. White, I am not sure that I could afford
to come to you. I am shockingly poor. Please tell me what your terms
are."

"Well," Mrs. White said slowly, "it depends a good deal upon what
rooms you have. Just now my best ones are all taken."

"So much the better," Anna declared cheerfully. "The smallest will do
for me quite well."

Mrs. White looked mysteriously about the room as though to be sure
that no one was listening.

"I should like you to come here," she said. "It's a great deal for a
young lady who's alone in the world, as I suppose you are at present,
to have a respectable home, and I do not think in such a case that
private apartments are at all desirable. We have a very nice set of
young people here too just at present, and you would soon make some
friends. I will take you for thirty-five shillings a week. Please
don't let any one know that."

"I have no idea what it costs to live in London," Anna said, "but I
should like very much to come for a short time if I might."

"Certainly," Mrs. White said. "Two days' notice shall be sufficient on
either side."

"And I may bring my luggage in and send that cabman away?" Anna asked.
"Dear me, what a relief! If I had had any nerves that man would have
trampled upon them long ago."

"Cabmen are so trying," Mrs. White assented. "You need have no further
trouble. The manservant shall bring your trunks in and pay the fare
too, if you like."

Anna drew out her purse at once.

"You are really a good Samaritan," she declared. "I am perfectly
certain that that man meant to be rude to me. He has been bottling it
up all the way from West Kensington."

Mrs. White rang the bell.

"Come upstairs," she said, "and I will show you your room. And would
you mind hurrying a little. You won't want to be late the first
evening, and it's ten minutes past seven now. Gracious, there's the
gong. This way, my dea