“I often think that, after all, there’s no place like a good ’ome.”

“If you’re lucky enough to have one,” assented Mavis heartfully.

“Sometimes I like it even better than ‘Poulter’s’; you know, when you’ve got a waltz in your ’ead, and ’ate it, and ’ave to play it over and over again.  But every bit of this here furniture is mine and paid for.”

“Really?” asked Mavis, feigning surprise to please her friend.

“I can show you the receipts if you don’t b’lieve me.”

“But I do.”

“Being at the academy makes me business-like.  But there! if I haven’t forgotten something; reelly I ’ave.”

“What?”

“One moment:  let me bring the light.”

Miss Nippett led the way to the landing immediately outside her door, where she unlocked a roomy cupboard, crammed to its utmost capacity with odds and ends of cheap feminine adornment.  Mangy evening boas, flimsy wraps, down-at-heel dancing shoes, handkerchiefs, gloves, powder puffs, and odd bits of ribbon were jumbled together in heaped disorder.

“D’ye know what they is?” asked Miss Nippett.

“Give it up,” replied Mavis.

“They’re the ‘overs.’”

“What on earth’s that?”

“Oh, I say, you are ignorant; reelly you are.  ‘Overs’ is what’s left and unclaimed at ‘Poulter’s.’”

“Really?”

“They’re my ‘perk,’” which last word Mavis took to be an abbreviation of perquisite.

Mavis looked curiously at the heap of forgotten finery:  had she lately lived among more prosperous surroundings, she might have glanced contemptuously at this collection of tawdry flummery; but, if her sordid struggles to make both ends meet had taught her nothing else, they had given her a keen sympathy for all forms of endeavour, however humble, to escape, if only for a crowded hour, from the debasing round of uncongenial toil.  Consequently, she looked with soft eyes at the pile of unclaimed “overs.”  None knew better than she of the sacrifices that the purchase of the cheapest of these entailed; her observation had told her with what pride they were worn, the infinite pleasure which their possession bestowed on their owner.  The cupboard’s contents seemed to Mavis to be eloquent of pinched meals, walks in bad weather to save ’bus fares, mean economies bravely borne; to cry aloud of pitiful efforts made by young hearts to secure a brief taste of their rightful heritage of joy, of which they had been dispossessed.

Mavis turned away with a sigh.

Presently, in the cosiness of the bed-sitting room, Miss Nippett became confidential.

“Are you ambitious?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Mavis.

“I mean reelly ambitious.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, like I am.  I’m reelly ambitious.”

“Indeed!”

“I want to be a partner in ‘Poulter’s.’  Not for the money, you understand, but for the honour.  If I was made a partner, I’d die ’appy.  See?”