“Indeed! Well, so much the better for us. It is usual to ask for references as to character, and security, or a sum on deposit; but I understand that Mrs. Bird guarantees all that, so we will say no more about it. The wages will be eighteen shillings a week for the first six months, and after that a pound if we are satisfied with you. Do you agree to these terms?” “Yes.” “Very well, then. Good morning.” “There’s a smart girl,” reflected Mr. Waters to himself, “and a real beauty too. But she’s a fool for all that; she ought to go on the boards,—she’d have a future there. However, it’s her affair, not mine.” “Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Bird to Joan, “you got through that capitally. At first I thought that he would never engage you, but he seemed to take quite a liking to you before the end. What do you think of him?” “I think him odious,” said Joan. “Odious, my dear! What a strong term! Free and easy, if you like, but not odious. He is much better than most of them, I can tell you.” “Then the rest must be very bad indeed,” said Joan, and continued on her way in silence. CHAPTER XXV. “I FORBID YOU.” On the following Monday morning Joan began her career as a shop-girl, to describe which in detail would be too long, however instructive it might prove. Her actual work, especially at this, the dead season of the year, was not so hard as she had expected, nor was she long in mastering her duties; but, accustomed as she had been to a country life and the fresh air, she soon found confinement for so many hours a day in the close atmosphere of the shop exceedingly irksome. From Kent Street to Messrs. Black and Parker’s was but a quarter of an hour’s walk; and, as Joan discovered by experiment, without exposing herself to many annoyances it was impossible for her to wander about the streets after dark in search of exercise. As a last resource she was driven to rising at the peep of day and taking her walks abroad in the Park so soon as the gates were open—a daily constitutional which, if wholesome, was not exhilarating, and one that could only be practised in fine weather and while the days were long. This craving for air, however, was among the least of her troubles, for soon it became clear to her that she had no vocation for shop life; indeed, she learned to loathe it and its surroundings. At first the humours of the business amused her a little, but very shortly she discovered that even about these there was a terrible sameness, for one cannot be perpetually entertained by the folly of old ladies trying to make themselves look young, or by the vanity of the young ones neglected by nature and attempting to supply their deficiencies with costly garments.