"No, but I get a very good meal sent in from the Cooking Centre opposite, and compared with what these girls get at home, steak and potatoes are the luxuries of Lucullus." "Oh, I don't believe it. They all look fatter than you. Then this is double punishment for you--extra work and hunger. Do send them away. They get on my nerves. And have your lunch like a sensible being." And without waiting for Salvina's assent: "Go along, girls," she said airily. The girls hesitated and looked at Salvina, who coloured afresh, but said, "Yes, this lady pleads for you, and I said that if you all promised to--" "Oh, yes, teacher," they interrupted enthusiastically, and were off. "Well, what I came to tell you, Sally, is that I'm not sure of my place much longer." Salvina turned pale, and that much-tried heart of hers thumped like a hammer. She waited in silence for the facts. "Lily is going to be married." "Well? All the more reason for Mabel to have a companion." Kitty shook her head. "It's the beginning of the end. Marriage is a contagious complaint in a family. First one member is taken off, then another. But that's not the worst." "No?" Poor Salvina held her breath. "Who do you think is the happy man? You'll never guess." "How should I? I don't know their circle." "Yes, you do. I mean, you know him." Salvina wrinkled her forehead vainly. "No, you'll never guess after all these years! Moss M. Rosenstein!" "Is it possible?" Salvina gasped. "Lily Samuelson!" "Yes--Lily Samuelson!" "But he must be an old man by now." "Well, _she_ isn't a chicken. And you thought it was such an outrage of him to ask for _me_. I suppose having once got inside the door to see me, he had the idea of aspiring higher." "Oh, don't say higher, Kitty. Richer, that's all--and now, I should say, lower, inasmuch as Lily Samuelson stoops to pick up what you passed by with scorn. And picks him up out of Sugarman's hand, probably." "Yes, it's all very well, and it's revenge enough in a way to think to myself what I do think to myself, when I see the young couple going on, and Moss is mortally scared of me, as I shoot him a glare, now and again. I shouldn't be surprised if he eggs them on to get rid of me. It would be too bad to be done out of everything." "Well, we must hope for the best," said Salvina, kissing her. "After all, you can always get another place." "I'm getting old," Kitty said glumly. "You old!" and the anæmic little school-mistress looked with laughing admiration at her sister's untarnished radiance. But when Kitty went, and lunch came, Salvina could not eat it. XI It was clear, however, that of the alternatives--giving up the night-work or returning to Hackney--the latter was the one favoured by Providence. Kitty might at any moment return to the parental roof, and there must be something, that Kitty would consider a roof, to shelter her.