“Great!” exclaimed the scornful Lizzy. “Old Shaddles great! Why, the mean old devil wouldn’t give me a half-crown raise at Christmas, and I’ve been punching the alphabet five years for him! Kid, you’ll marry into society. That countess is a she-dragon, but she’s rich, and you’re sure to meet swells--go and have your annual while I fry the eggs. Is it going to rain?” Lois was rubbing her white, rounded arm, gingerly passing her palm over the pink, star-shaped scar just above her elbow. It was Lizzy’s faith that whenever the scar irritated, rain was in the offing. “You’ll have to have that electrocuted, or whatever the word is,” said the snub-nosed girl when the other shook her head. “Sleeves are about as fashionable nowadays as crinolines.” From the bathroom Lois heard her companion bustling about the little kitchen, and, mingled with the splutter and crackle of frying eggs, came shrilly the sound of the newest fox-trot as Lizzy whistled it unerringly. They had shared the third floor in Charlotte Street since the day she had come to London. Lois was an orphan; she could not remember her father, who had died when she was little more than a baby, and only dimly recalled the pleasant, matronly woman who had fussed over her in the rough and humble days of her early schooling. She had passed to the care of a vague aunt who was interested in nothing except the many diseases from which she imagined she suffered. And then the aunt had died, despite her arrays of medicine bottles, or possibly because of them, and Lois had gone into her first lodging. “Anyway, the countess will like your classy talk,” said Lizzy, as the radiant girl came into the kitchen. She had evidently been thinking over the new appointment. “I don’t believe I talk classily!” said Lois good-humouredly. Lizzy turned out the eggs from the frying-pan with a dexterous flick. “I’ll bet that’s what got _him_,” she said significantly, and the girl flushed. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about this wretched young man as though he were a god,” she said shortly. Nothing squashed Lizzy Smith. She wiped her moist forehead with the back of her hand, pitched the frying-pan into the sink and sat down in one concerted motion. “He’s not common, like some of these pickers-up,” she said reminiscently, “he’s class, if you like! He thanked me like a lady, and never said a word that couldn’t have been printed on the front page of the _Baptist Herald_. When I turned up without you, he _was_ disappointed. And mind you, it was no compliment to me when he looked down his nose and said: ‘Didn’t you bring her?’” “These eggs are burnt,” said Lois. “And a gentleman,” continued the steadfast Lizzy. “Got his own car. And the hours he spends walking up and down Bedford Row just, so to speak, to get a glimpse of you, would melt a heart of stone.” “Mine is brass,” said Lois with a smile. “And really, Elizabetta, you’re ridiculous.”