"I couldn't come home at once, because I had been having a long rest, and the money was all spent. And Lady A. had promised to secure me the place I am now going to in Devonshire, so I thought I would stay on, and endure it without complaint for a while. Then the summer came, and there was an unusual demand for rooms, and Mrs. Tatlow came to me one day with her oily smile, and said she had been obliged to take my room for a time, and if I would not mind the inconvenience of sleeping downstairs she thought she could make me very comfortable. I said I shouldn't mind, for I had not then seen the room, and my attic, since the hot weather set in, had been so hot that I thought I couldn't be much worse off. But, oh, Hilda, if you had seen the room! It had no window, but was lit by a grating in the door. It ran under the street. It was dark, noisome, unwholesome in the last degree, for it had only been intended to put brushes and such things in. My wretched little bed almost filled it completely. I protested when I saw the place, but quite in vain. My own room was already taken." "And you slept in it, Freda?" I cried out, horrified. "I could do nothing else. Mary had taken Jacky to Broadstairs--we have always managed to give him a month at the sea every summer. This little house is taken for that period by two maiden ladies, friends of Mary's, who like to come up once a year to see the pictures and shops. I had nowhere to turn to. I sat down in the horrible little hole and cried bitterly. Then I concluded that I could stand it till Mary came home, and so I set my teeth to it." "The woman ought to have been put in prison," I said angrily. Freda laughed. "That is precisely what Susan, the kitchen-maid, said. 'She did ought to be in 'Olloway, that's wot she ought.' Indeed I got plenty of sympathy from the overworked, badly-fed, worse-housed, kitchen staff. I often wondered at the warmth of their partizanship, poor dears. They were worse off, as far as sleeping accommodation went, than myself, though, of course, a servant has always this advantage over an untrained lady, that she can leave. There are so many of us," said Freda, with a watery little smile. "You had some friends, anyhow?" I said. "Yes; though I wouldn't listen to their sympathy; not so much for my dignity's sake--that sort of thing levels human beings somehow--as that I couldn't bear it at the time." "You poor darling!" I cried, embracing her. Again the rainbow smile flitted over her face, and she went on. "The sympathy that really touched me most came from the ostensible master of the house. Before this time I had only seen Mr. Tatlow flitting along a corridor, or diving into a doorway to get out of my way. He was the most absurd little man to look at--pale-faced, tearful-eyed, with long red weepers of whiskers, and a general miserableness of expression." "So well he might have," said I acridly. "Well--"