made up, she was out of the dress in an instant; time was short. She hurriedly extracted her black gown from the wardrobe, caught hold of a pair of scissors, and in a few minutes had ripped the imitation lace from its foundations and was transferring it with trembling fingers to Julian's gift. Never before had she worked at any task with such grim determination, or with such deftness; inspired by exceptional circumstances, she might for twenty minutes have been a practised dressmaker. Certainly, pins were called in as weapons to the attack; but what of that? Compromises are often only stuck together with pins. In any case Cuckoo was not entirely in despair with the new aspect of an old friend, and when she was ready was able at least to hope that things might have been worse. Putting on over the dress a black jacket, she went out into the passage and called down to Mrs. Brigg, who, as usual, was wandering to and fro in her kitchen, like an uneasy shade in nethermost Hades. "Mrs. Brigg! Mrs. Brigg, I say!" "Well?" "Where's the whistle?" Mrs. Brigg came to the bottom of the kitchen stairs. "What d' yer want it for?" "A cab, of course," cried Cuckoo, in the narrow voice of one in a hurry. "A cab!" rejoined Mrs. Brigg, ascending the dark stairs all the time she was speaking. "And what do you want with cabs, I should like to know? Who pays for 'em, that's what I say; who's to do it?" Her grey head hove in sight. "Where are you going? Piccadilly?" "No; get the whistle." "What--and no hat!" She was evidently impressed. "A toff is it?" she ejaculated, obviously appeased. "Well! so long as I get the rent I--" With a white glare Cuckoo seized the whistle from her claw, and in a moment was driving away through the snow. Mrs. Brigg trotted back to the kitchen decidedly relieved. Cuckoo's suddenly altered mode of life had tried her greatly. The girl had taken to going out in the day and staying at home at night. Simultaneously with this changed _régime_ her funds had evidently become low. She had begun to live less well, to watch more keenly than of old the condition in which her commons went down to the kitchen and returned from it on the advent of the next meal. By various little symptoms the landlady knew that her lodger was getting hard up. Yet no amount of badgering and argument would induce Cuckoo to say why she sat indoors at night. She acknowledged that she was not ill. Mrs. Brigg had been seriously exercised. But now her old heart was glad. Cuckoo was, perhaps, mounting into higher circles, circles in which hats were not worn during the evening. And as Mrs. Brigg entered her nethermost hell she broke into a thin, quavering song: "In 'er 'air she wore a white cam-eeiyer, Dark blue was the colour of 'er heye." It was her song of praise. She always sang it on great occasions.