A few minutes later, she set out upon this wearisome quest:  she had never looked for London lodgings before.  Although nearly every window in the less frequented streets displayed a card announcing that apartments were to let, she soon discovered how difficult it was to get anything remotely approaching her simple needs.  She required a small bedroom in a house where there was a bathroom; also, if possible, she wanted the use of a sitting-room with a passable piano on which she sought permission to give lessons to any pupils whom she might be successful in getting.

Most of the doors she knocked at were answered by dirty children or by dirtier women; these, instinctively, told Mavis that she would get neither cleanliness nor comfort in a house frequented by such folk.  When confronted with these, she would make some excuse for knocking at the door, and, after walking on a few yards, would attack the knocker of another house, when, more likely than not, the door would be opened by an even more slatternly person than before.  Now and again she would light upon a likely place, but it soon appeared to Mavis that good landladies knew their value and made charges which were prohibitive to the girl’s slender resources.

Tired with running up and down so many steps and stairs, Mavis turned into a milk-shop to buy a bun and a glass of milk.  She asked the kindly-faced woman who served her if she happened to know of anyone who let clean rooms at moderate charges.  The woman wrote down two addresses, said that she would be comfortable at either of these, and told her the quickest way of getting to them.  The first name was a Mrs Ellis, who lived at 20 Kiva Gardens.  This address proved to be a neat, two-storied house, by the side of which was a road leading to stables and a yard.  Mrs Ellis opened the door.  Mavis, with a sense of elation, saw that she was a trim, elderly, kindly-looking body.

The girl explained what she wanted.  She learned that there was a small bedroom at the back to let; also, that she could have the use of the downstairs sitting-room, in which was a piano.

“Would you very much mind if I had one or two pupils?” asked Mavis.

“Not a bit, miss.  I like young people myself, and look on music as company.”

“I’d like to see the bedroom.”

Mrs Ellis took Mavis upstairs, where the girl was delighted to find that the room was pleasant-looking and scrupulously clean.

“It’s only a question of terms,” said Mavis hesitatingly.

“You’d better see the sitting-room and try the piano, miss, before you decide,” remarked Mrs Ellis.

They went downstairs to another room at the back of the house; this was adequate, although Mavis noticed that it was stuffy.  Perhaps the landlady suspected the girl’s thoughts on the matter, for she said: 

“I have the window shut to keep out dust and smell from the yard, miss.”

Mavis, satisfied with this explanation, looked through the window, and saw that the yard was much bigger than she had believed it to be.  Three or four men in corduroys were lounging about and chaffing each other.