'If next Saturday is wet or horrid like last Saturday, I shall ask Stella to bring me here,' Vava announced, as she moved one of her 'men.' 'On Saturday! I should have thought you would want to get away from the City as soon as possible! I should, I know,' said the other. 'But you are staying this evening,' Vava pointed out. 'That is because my chum Amy is working late; I always wait for her rather than go home alone; but on Saturdays we generally go for a long bicycle ride or something, to get some fresh air and fresh ideas,' announced the girl, hopping over two of Vava's 'men.' 'I wish I rode a bicycle; but we always rode horses in Scotland--at least Stella did; I had a pony,' explained Vava. 'This must be a change for you!' cried the other; but said no more, for the game absorbed her attention. But the result of this conversation was that, the next Saturday being wet, Vava's opponent suddenly said to her chum, 'Amy, we can't cycle to-day; suppose we lunch at the Enterprise, and have some games with those two new girls in mourning?' 'Oh the Misses Wharton? Have you fallen in love with the beautiful Miss Wharton too?' replied the girl called Amy. 'Is that their name? But it isn't Miss Wharton I am thinking of; it's her younger sister. Fancy, they have been used to riding their own horses, and now they walk to the City and back! She wants to stay at the Enterprise on Saturday, so they can't have very nice "diggings,"' replied her companion. 'It's not a bad place to spend a wet afternoon in; so, if you like, we will lunch there; it's just as comfortable as Bleak House,' replied Amy. 'Yes, but one gets tired of living in a crowd. Oh how I wish we could afford a cottage in the country!' said the younger girl. 'But we cannot, Eva; so let us try to be contented with our lot,' replied Amy. By way of showing her content, Eva grumbled loudly at it to Vava. The four were sitting at the same table, having lunch, and she found only too willing a listener in Vava Wharton to sympathise with her. 'Cheer up, Eva; things might be worse. Here we are sitting on a wet and bitterly cold afternoon in a pleasant, warm room, in comfortable chairs, surrounded by newspapers, magazines, and fashion papers! What more could you have if you were a fashionable young lady?' inquired her chum Amy. 'I could have this room as my own, and money to spend on the fashions I look at, and somewhere to show them off better than a stuffy office or Bleak House,' retorted Eva. 'Bleak House! That is the name of one of Dickens's books!' exclaimed Vava. 'It is the name of a large hostel or boarding-house for ladies who earn their own living, where Eva and I live, and it is really quite comfortable, only that it is not home,' said Amy, and she looked sympathetically at Eva, who was only sixteen, and had begun early to work for her daily bread.