shop and up to the lady with the dressed head. "A machine, ma'am?" said the lady, with a very female look at Cuckoo. Cuckoo shook her head. "What can I do for you?" "I'd like some work." "Work!" said the lady, her voice travelling from the contralto to the soprano register. "I ain't got nothing to do. I want something; I'll do anything, like she does," this, with a nod in the direction of a door through which the pleasant stranger had vanished. "Miss King; our bookkeeper! You know her?" "No. I only see her in the street." "Good morning," came from the lady, and a back confronted Cuckoo. The pilgrimages were resumed. Cuckoo visited dressmakers, bonnet-shops, ABC establishments, with no success. Her face, even when unpainted, told its tale. Nature can write down the truth of a sin better than art. Cuckoo learnt that fact by her walks. But still she trudged, learning each day more truths, one of which--a finale to the long sermon, it seemed--was that there is no army on earth more difficult to enlist in, under certain circumstances her own, than the army of good working-girls. The day she thoroughly understood that finale Cuckoo went home and had a violent row with Mrs. Brigg. A cold scrag of mutton was supposed to be the bone of contention, but that was only supposition. Cuckoo was really cursing Mrs. Brigg because the world is full of close boroughs, not at all because cold mutton has not learnt how to achieve eternal life, while at the same time fulfilling its duties as an edible. Not understanding this subtlety of emotion, Mrs. Brigg let herself loose in sarcasm. "Why don't yer go out of a night?" she screamed, battering with one hand on a tea-tray, held perpendicularly, to emphasize her words. "What's come to yer? Go out; go out of a night." "Shan't." "Turned pious, 'ave yer?" sneered the landlady. "Or waitin' for a 'usband? Which is it to be? Mr. H'Addison, I dessey! Hee, hee, hee."