“You don’t want much, do you, asking me to carry tea up four flights of stairs? I’ll see what I can do.” Elsie began to hum, in a small, rather tuneful little voice. She let her skirt fall round her feet as she sang and pulled off her blouse, revealing beautifully modelled breasts and shoulders. Her arms were a little too short, but the line from breast-bone to knee was unusually good, the legs plump and shapely, with slender ankles and the instep well arched. She wore serge knickerbockers and a flimsy under-bodice of yellow cotton voile over a thick cotton chemise. “Are you going out _again_?” asked Geraldine in a vexed, feeble voice. “I may go round and sit with Ireen for a bit, after supper. I think she wants to go to the pictures, or something.” “How’s Mr. Tidmarsh?” “Going to die, I should think, by all accounts,” glibly replied Elsie, although as a matter of fact she had forgotten to make any enquiry for Irene’s father, who had for months past been dying from some obscure and painful internal growth. “Why doesn’t he go to a hospital?” “Don’t ask me. Ireen’s always begging him to, but he won’t.” “Old people are awfully selfish, I think,” said Geraldine thoughtfully. “Yes, aren’t they? Look, I’m going to put this collar on my Sunday serge. That ought to smarten it up a bit.” She pinned the cheap lace round the low-cut V at the neck of an old navy-blue dress, and fastened it with a blue-stoned brooch in the shape of a circle. Her throat rose up, fresh and warm and youthful, from the new adornment. “Isn’t it time I put my hair up, don’t you think?” “No. You’re only a kid. I didn’t put mine up till I was eighteen. Mother wouldn’t let me.” Elsie dragged a thick grey pilot-cloth coat from behind the curtain of faded red rep that hung across a row of pegs and constituted the sisters’ wardrobe, caught up the black tam-o’-shanter again and ran downstairs. All the time that she was laying the table in the dining-room, which was next to the kitchen on the ground floor, Elsie hummed to herself. The tablecloth was stained in several places, and she arranged the Britannia-metal forks and spoons, the coarse, heavy plates and the red glass water-jug so as to cover the spots as much as possible. In the middle of the table stood a thick fluted green glass with paper chrysanthemums in it. Elsie added the cruet, two half-loaves of bread on a wooden platter with “Bread” carved upon it in raised letters, and put a small red glass beside each plate. Finally she quickly pleated half a dozen coloured squares of Japanese paper, and stuck one into each glass. “Mother!” she called. “What?” said Mrs. Palmer from the kitchen. “It’s ready laid.” “What are you in such a hurry for? Miss M. and Mr. Williams haven’t turned up yet.” “Mr. Roberts wants his supper early, I know.” “You’ve no business to know, then. Well, put the ham on the table and the cold sweets, and he can go in when he pleases. This is Liberty Hall, as I call it.”