"Yes," answered Gertrude, absently. The last remark had fallen on unheeding ears; her attention was entirely absorbed by a cab which had stopped before the door. One moment, and she was on the stairs; the next, she and Lucy were in one another's arms. "Oh, Gerty, is it a hundred years?" "Thousands, Lucy. How well you look, and I believe you have grown." Up and down, hand in hand, went the sisters, into every nook and corner of the small domain, exclaiming, explaining, asking and answering a hundred questions. "Oh, Lucy," cried Gertrude, in a burst of enthusiasm, as they stood together in the studio, "this is work, this is life. I think we have never worked or lived before." Fan and Phyllis came rustling between the curtains to join them. "Here we all are," went on Gertrude. "I hope nobody is afraid, but that every one understands that this is no bed of roses we have prepared for ourselves." "We shall have to work like niggers, and not have very much to eat. I think we all realise that," said Lucy, with an encouraging smile. "Plain living and high thinking," ventured Fanny; then grew overwhelmed with confusion at her own unwonted brilliancy. "At least," said Phyllis, "we can all of us manage the plain living. And as a beginning, I vote we go upstairs to supper." [Illustration: Decoration] [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER V. THIS WORKING-DAY WORLD. _O the pity of it._ OTHELLO. If a sudden reverse of fortune need not make us cynical, there is perhaps no other experience which brings us face to face so quickly and so closely with the realities of life. The Lorimers, indeed, had no great cause for complaint; and perhaps, in condemning the Timons of this world, forgot that, as interesting young women, embarked moreover on an interesting enterprise, they were not themselves in a position to gauge the full depths of mundane perfidy. Of course, after a time, they dropped off from the old set, from the people with whom their intercourse had been a mere matter of social commerce; but, as Phyllis justly observed, when you have no time to pay calls, no clothes to your back, no money for cabs, and very little for omnibuses, you can hardly expect your career to be an unbroken course of festivities. On the other hand, many of their friends drew closer to them in the hour of need, and a great many good-natured acquaintances amused themselves by patronising the studio in Upper Baker Street, and recommending other people to go and do likewise. Certainly these latter exacted a good deal for their money; were restive when posed, expected the utmost excellence of work and punctuality of delivery, and, like most of the Lorimers' customers, seemed to think the sex of the photographers a ground for greater cheapness in the photographs. One evening, towards the middle of October, the girls had assembled for the evening meal--it could not, strictly speaking, be called dinner--in the little sitting-room above the shop.