e lunch with her angel face deeply
flushed; but she wore a very cheerful air. Also she displayed an
excellent appetite. In the middle of lunch she said in dreamy
reminiscence, apropos of nothing in particular:

"I got this place clean once."

"Isn't it clean now?" said Hilary Vance in a tone of anxious surprise.

"It depends on what you call clean," said Pollyooly politely.

After lunch she brought the drawers from the chest of drawers in the
bedroom into the kitchen and washed them and dried them in the sun.
Then, at last, she unpacked the brown tin box and put away their
clothes.

After that she took the Lump for an hour's walk on the embankment. She
preferred it to the embankment below the Temple; it seemed to her
airier. She returned to tea, and had a little struggle with the
teaspoons. They enjoyed, after the lapse of months, the experience of
shining. After tea Hilary Vance told her regretfully that he would not
be able to come home to supper, but that she would find provisions in
the cupboard, and advising them to go to bed early, bade them an
affectionate good-night and went out in a northeasterly direction to
talk about Art.

When the door closed behind him Pollyooly heaved a faint sigh of
satisfaction and looked round the studio with the light of battle in
her eye. Then she took the canvases, which were set against the wall
three and four deep, into the street and brushed them. The dust in the
street had been a tedious grey; in front of the house of Hilary Vance
it became a warm black.

Then she put the Lump, with the toys she had brought with her, into the
clean bedroom, and fell upon the studio. By the time she had brushed
the pictures and the walls and the ceiling its floor had become very
dusty indeed, and she was once more black. She swept it, and then she
was an hour scrubbing it. When it was done she gave the Lump his
supper and put him to bed. After supper she dealt faithfully with the
windows. The skylight gave her trouble; it was so high. But she tied
a wet cloth round the top of a broom, and by standing on the table
reached it. It made her arms ache, but slowly the panes assumed a
transparency to which they had long been unused. When she had cleaned
them from the inside she considered thoughtfully the possibility of
sitting astride the roof and cleaning their outside surfaces. But
there was no way of getting on to the roof. Then she had a hot bath;
she needed it.

Mrs. T