A neat maid with a cross face came in at that moment and bumped down an uninviting tray of tea and bread and butter on a table, with an impertinence that was somehow galling. Ismay Trelane looked at it, and a sudden light sprang into her strangely lovely face, that was sometimes so much older than her years, as a smile came to her delicate, thin lips. “There isn’t any room for me in mama’s life,” she thought quietly, “it’s all taken up with Lord Abbotsford! She can’t surely think he means to marry her, yet she never kept up the mask like this for any of her other admirers.” Looking back with ungirlish wisdom into the past before she had been shoved into Mrs. Barlow’s school, she added: “Well, it doesn’t matter! I’m not a child any more; I can amuse myself.” She felt in the pocket of her old black frock, that was too short, for all the money she owned--ten shillings her mother had given her in a moment of generosity. “She said to keep out of the way,” she reflected, “and I will. But I won’t sit here all the evening, and I won’t”--pride getting the better of hunger--“drink any of that horrid tea.” She slipped on her sailor-hat and jacket, a garment that had been barely decent all summer, but was threadbare now, and with noiseless haste made her way down-stairs and out into the street. The fresh, cool air did her good, and she walked quickly out of the quiet Brompton Square into the bustling thoroughfare of the Brompton Road. London at night was strange to her, and she was not even sure what she wanted to do. “I’m out, though, and that’s the main thing,” she thought cheerfully. “I think I’ll go for a drive on an omnibus! Then when I feel like it I can get off and have something to eat somewhere.” She felt almost gay as she hailed the first bus that came thundering by, and climbed to the roof of the unwieldy thing. How pretty it was! The long street like a shifting ribbon of light, with its never-ending stream of carriage-lamps; its procession of hansoms and carriages full of people--men chiefly--in evening dress. “Where do you go?” she asked the conductor as she paid her fare. “Piccadilly Circus, miss; Shaftesbury Avenue, past the Palace Theater.” “Theater!” Ismay’s heart gave a jump. Why not go to a theater? There was time; it could not be more than half-past eight. After that she could take a cab and go home. It was three years since she had been at a theater; but she knew the Palace was a variety place, where it did not matter what time you arrived. The November air was cold on top of the omnibus, but the girl’s blood was warm, as she watched the surging panorama of the streets. This was life; the shifting crowd went to her head like wine; her eyes burned like stars as she looked about her at the never-ending drama of London.