Elizabeth goes on holiday.

“Please, ’m, may I go for my ’olidays a week come Thursday?” asked Elizabeth.  She was evidently labouring under some strong excitement, for she panted as she spoke and so far forgot herself in her agitation as to take up the dust in the hall instead of sweeping it under the mat.

“But you promised to go on your holiday when we have ours in September,” I protested, aghast. (You will shortly understand the reason of my dismay.) “I don’t see how I can possibly manage—­”

“I’m sorry, ’m, but I must take ’em then,” interposed Elizabeth with a horrid giving-notice gleam in her eye which I have learnt to dread.  “You see, my young man is ‘avin’ ’is ‘olidays then an’—­an’”—­she drew up her lank form and a look that was almost human came into her face—­“’e’s arsked me to go with ’im,” she finished with ineffable pride.

I am aware that this is not an unusual arrangement amongst engaged couples in the class to which Elizabeth belongs; nevertheless I felt it was the moment for judicious advice, knowing how ephemeral are the love-affairs of Elizabeth.  No butterfly that flits from flower to flower could be more elusive than her young men.  Our district must swarm with this fickle type.

“Do you think it right to go off on a holiday with a stranger?” I began diffidently.

“’Im!  ’E isn’t a stranger,” broke in Elizabeth. “’E’s my young man.”

“Which young man?”

“My new young man.”

“But don’t you think it would be better if he were not such a new young man—­I mean, if he were an old young man—­er—­perhaps I ought to say you should know him longer before you go away with him.  It’s not quite the thing—­”

“Why, wot’s wrong with it?” demanded Elizabeth, puzzled.  “All the girls I know spends their ‘olidays with their young men, an’ then it doesn’t cost them nothink.  That’s the best of it.  But it’s the first time I’ve ever been arsked,” she admitted, “an’ I wouldn’t lose a charnce like this for anythink.”

Further appeal was useless, and with a sigh I resigned myself to the inevitable; but when, ten days later, Elizabeth departed in a whirl of enthusiasm and brown paper parcels I turned dejectedly to the loathsome business of housework.

It is a form of labour which above all others I detest.  My metier is to write—­one day I even hope to become a great writer.  But what I never hope to become is a culinary expert.  Should you command your cook to turn out a short story she could not suffer more in the agonies of composition than I do in making a simple Yorkshire pudding.

My household now passed into a condition of settled gloom.  My nerves began to suffer from the strain, and I came gradually to regard Henry as less of a helpmate and more of a voracious monster demanding meals at too frequent intervals.  It made me peevish with him.