Mary didn't know; as a matter of fact, she had never tried her hand at anything of the kind; but she was perfectly willing to try. A horrible feeling of helplessness was growing upon her; she wondered what she would have done if Fate and Ralph Darnley had not thrown Connie and her together. For the next hour or two she tried her hand at designs of various kinds, only to feel that she made but a poor hand at the business. By tea-time her head was aching terribly and she dropped into the armchair with a sigh of misery. "They are pretty bad," Connie said in her candid way; "we shall have to wait a little longer before we find your proper vocation. For the present you will have to fall back upon colouring cards--Christmas cards, and post cards, and the like. That pretty chocolate-box type of work of yours will do admirably for that class of thing. You shall do a few specimen cards tomorrow, and I'll give you the address of a man who will commission more. Only it is terribly hard, you will get paid at the rate of half-a-crown a hundred." Mary's heart sank within her. Half-a-crown a hundred! At that rate it would be impossible for her to make more than fifteen shillings a week. She pointed out the fact to Connie, who agreed with a cheerful nod. "You have worked it out pretty accurately," she said. "There are hundreds of girls who do it, and the worst of the thing is that so many girls can earn pocket-money that way who have no need to do anything at all. It is the same with typewriting, the same with everything. And, after all, it is quite possible to live on fifteen shillings a week." CHAPTER XXXIX. HOMELESS Connie refused to be drawn into further conversation for the present. She was very busy touching up certain sketches which she informed Mary were intended to illustrate the pages of a popular lady's novelette, the published price of which was a halfpenny. They were dreadful drawings, as Mary could see, grotesque exaggerations of the work of George Du Maurier, impossibly tall females, with regular doll-like features and long lashes, with men of the same type. Five drawings went to each novelette, and the price paid was thirty shillings. "As a matter of fact they are not mine," Connie explained, as she put the finishing touches to the figure of a severely classical duchess; "they are the work of a friend. She has been very ill lately and her work has fallen off in consequence. This lot would have been rejected by the editor, only I happen to know his assistant, who suggested that I should take them back and patch them up before they came under the eagle eye of the proprietor. I can get the money for them this evening, and tell Grace that the editor asked me to bring it along." "That does not seem quite--quite the right thing," Mary suggested.