ended. There was no more boating, but there were still long walks
and excursions. The apprenticeship was over, and Nelly was now a regular
hand, and farther advanced than many who had worked a year or two. She
made good wages, often a pound a week. Her dress was all that such a
shop demanded; her manner quieter every day.

"She's a lady, that's plain," Maria said; and Madame agreed with her,
and took the girl more and more into favor. Nelly had a little room of
her own now, next to Maria. She seldom went home, save to take money to
her mother, and she never stayed long.

"It's best not," Mrs. Judkins said. "You're bound for something better,
and you'll get it. This isn't your place. You're a bit pale, Nelly. It's
the hours and the close room, I suppose?"

"Yes; it's the hours," Nelly said. "When there's a press, we're often
kept on till nine or ten; but it's a good place."

She lingered to-day till Jim came in. Jim grew worse and worse, and she
hurried away as she saw him swaggering toward the door; but there were
tears in her eyes as she turned away. She passed her friend of the
summer in Regent Street, and looked back for a moment. He had nodded,
but was talking busily with a tall man, who eyed Nelly sharply. She had
found that he lived in Chelsea, and was a literary man of some
sort,--she hardly knew what,--and that his name was Stanley; beyond
this she knew nothing. Some day he would make her a lady,--but when?
There was need of haste. No one knew how great need.

Another month or two, the winter well upon them, and there came a day
when Madame, who, as Nelly entered the workroom, had stopped for a
moment and looked at her, first in surprise, then in furious anger,
burst out upon her in words that scorched the ears to hear. No girl like
that need sit down among decent girls. March, and never show her
shameful face again.

Nelly rose silently, and took down her hat and shawl, and as silently
went out, Madame's shrill voice still sounding. What should she do? The
end was near. She could not go home. She must find Herbert, and tell
him; but he would not be at home before night. She knew his number now,
and how to find him. He must make it all right. She went into Hyde Park
and walked about, and when she grew too cold, into a cocoa-room, and so
the day wore away; and at five she took a Chelsea omnibus, and leaned
back in the corner thinking what to say. The place was easily found,
and she knocked, with her heart