“I never laugh at you, and I only want to help you up with the water.”

“Straight?”

“What else should I want?”

“Don’t be kind to me,” cried Bella, suddenly breaking down.

“Bella!” gasped Mavis in astonishment.

“Don’t you start being kind to me.  I ain’t used to it,” wept Bella.

“Don’t be a fool, Bella!”

“I ain’t a fool.  I’m onny ugly and lopsided, and everyone laughs at me ‘ceptin’ you, and I’ve no one or—­or nothin’ to care for.”

Mavis thought it advisable to take Bella into her room, which happened to be empty; here, she thought, Bella would be free from eyes that would only find food for mirth in her tears.

“I’ve never had a young man,” sobbed Bella.  “An’ that’s why I turned to Gawd and looked down on the young ladies here, as ’as as many young men as they want; too many sometimes.  An’ speaking of Gawd, it’s nice to ’ave Someone yer know as cares for you, though you can’t never see ’Im or walk out with ’Im.”

From this time, she tried to do Bella many little kindnesses, but, saving this one instance, the servant was always on her guard and never again opened her heart to Mavis.

Miss Striem did not carry out her threat of charging Mavis for the extras she refused to eat.  In time, Mavis got used to the food supplied by “Dawes’”; she did not swallow everything that was put upon her plate, indeed, she did not eat with good appetite at three consecutive meals; but she could sit at the table in the feeding-room without overwhelming feelings of repulsion, and, by shutting her eyes to the unconcealed mastication of the girl opposite, could often pick enough to satisfy her immediate needs.  The evening was the time when she was most hungry; after the walk which she made a point of taking in all weathers, she would get quite famished, when the morsel of Canadian cheese and sour bread supplied for supper was wholly insufficient.  At first, she was tempted to enter the cheaper restaurants with which the streets about Oxford Street abound; but these extravagances made serious inroads on her scanty capital and had to be given up, especially as she was saving up to buy new boots, of which she was in need.

She confided in Miss Meakin, who was now looking better and plumper, since nearly every evening she had taken to supping with her “boy’s” mother, who owned a stationery business in the Holloway Road.

“I know, it’s dreadful.  I used to be like that before I met Sylvester,” Miss Meakin answered to Mavis’s complaint.

“But what am I to do?” asked Mavis.

“Have you ever tried brisket?”

“What’s that?”

“Beef!”

“Beef?”

“You get it at the ham and beef shop.  You get quite a lot for five pence, and when they get to know you they give you good weight.”

“But you must have something with it,” remarked Mavis.

“Then you go to a baker’s and buy a penn’orth of bread.”