Nora's knowledge of London was as slight as the average young lady's, who has lived mostly in the country, is apt to be; yet, when she left Cloverlea, she went straight to London, with eight pounds, four and twopence in her pocket, intending to live upon that sum until she had discovered some means of earning more. There was some method in her madness. She had been reading a story lately about a young woman who had struggled to make a living in town, and she had had rooms in Newington Butts. Nora had gathered that, while Newington Butts was not an abode of fashion, nor a particularly salubrious neighbourhood, it was within reasonable distance of places where young women could earn money; and, above all, that thereabouts lodgings were both plentiful and cheap.  
The train deposited Nora at Paddington. Had she known her way about she would have left her trunk in the cloak-room, and crossed London by one of half-a-dozen different routes, for a few coppers; when she had found lodgings the box would have been delivered at her address for a few more coppers. What she did do was to charter a four-wheeler. It is some distance from Paddington to Newington Butts; to Nora, an unaccustomed traveller, already tired with her journey, hungry and thirsty, the way seemed interminable. She began to wonder if the driver quite knew where he was going; he seemed to go on and on and never get there. At last, a little desperate, she put her head out of the window and asked him--
 
"Are you sure this is the right way?"
 
The cab stopped. The driver screwed himself round in his seat, and he observed, in the tone of one who is offended--
 
"You said Newington Butts, didn't you?"
 
"Yes."
 
Hers was the voice of deprecation.
 
"Very well then; I'm driving you to Newington Butts. If you think you know the way better than I do you can come outside and I'll get inside. I've been driving this cab two and twenty years, and if there's any one who knows the way to Newington Butts better than I do, I should like to know who it is."
 
She drew her head back and subsided on the seat, doubting no longer. She felt that a man who had been a cabman for two and twenty years ought to know the way to Newington Butts better than she did. The cab went on. There was another period of seemingly interminable jolting; it seemed likely that the springs had been on that cab as long as the driver had. Once more the vehicle stopped. This time the driver asked a question.
 
"What address?"
 
As Nora put her head out again hers was the tone of anxiety.
 
"Is this Newington Butts?"
 
"It used to be when I was here last, but perhaps it's been and gone and turned itself into something else since; you might ask a policeman if you think it has been up to any game of the kind. There's one standing over there; I'll call him if you like; he might know."
 
"Thank you; I--I don't think I'll trouble you. The fact is I want lodgings; do you know of any round here?"
 
"Lodgings? I shouldn't have thought there was any round here to suit you."
 
"Oh, I'm so sorry; why not?"
 
"There's about two hundred thousand, I dare say, so perhaps one of them might suit. Anyhow, I'll show you a few samples. Only, mind you, I'm not engaged by the hour, nor yet by the week."
 
When next the cab stopped the main thoroughfare had been left behind, and they were in a street of private houses.
 
"Here you are; here's a street pretty nearly full of them; all you've got to do is pick and choose."
 
Nora, getting out, perceived that in many of the windows there were cards announcing that there were rooms to let. She began her search. At some houses they asked too much; at others they did not take ladies; and there were rooms in which she would not have lived rent-free; perhaps she tried a dozen without success. The cabman, who had followed her from house to house, did not appear to be so disheartened by this result as she did.
 
"That's nothing," he declared, as she regarded him with doubtful eyes. "Sometimes people go dodging about after rooms the whole day long, and then don't find what they want. There's more round the corner; try them."
 
Nora went round the corner, the cab moving at a walking pace beside her. The first door at which she knocked was opened by a girl, a small girl, who looked about twelve; but she wore her hair in a knob at the back of her head, and there was something in her manner which seemed intended to inform the world at large that she was to be regarded as a grown woman.
 
"What rooms have you to let?" asked Nora.
 
The girl looked at her with sharp, shrewd eyes; her reply was almost aggressive.
 
"We don't care for ladies, not in the ordinary way we don't."
 
Nora had been told this before. Though she had not understood why a woman should be objected to merely because she was a woman, she had meekly withdrawn. But there was that about this child--who bore herself as if she were so old--which induced her to persevere.
 
"I am sorry to hear that. If you were to make an exception in my case I would try not to make myself more objectionable than I could help."
 
The girl remained unsoftened.
 
"That may be; but you never can tell. Some give more trouble than they're worth, and some aren't worth anything; this is a respectable house. Still there's no harm in letting you see what we have got."
 
On the upper floor were a small sitting-room in front and a still smaller bedroom behind; barely, poorly furnished, with many obvious makeshifts, but scrupulously clean.
 
"What rent are you asking?"
 
"Ten shillings a week, and not a penny less; it ought to be fourteen."
 
"I'm afraid I can't pay fourteen shillings a week just yet, but I think I can manage ten; I like the rooms because they seem so clean."
 
"They are clean; no one can say they're not clean; I defy 'em to."
 
"Can I see the landlady?"
 
"My mother's the landlady; she's not very well just now; I can make all arrangements."
 
"Then in that case don't you think that if I were to take the rooms for a week on trial, at the end of that time we might find out if we were likely to suit each other?"
 
"We might; there's no knowing. When would you want them?"
 
"At once; my luggage is at the door."
 
"Then mind you make the cabman bring it up before you pay him; I know them cabmen."
 
But the cabman would not be made; he pleaded inability to leave his horse. An individual had appeared who offered to carry up the box for threepence; so Nora let him. After the cabman had been paid there remained of her capital less than eight pounds. When they were again up-stairs she said to the girl--
 
"What's your name? I'm Miss Lindsay."
 
"I'm Miss Gibb."
 
Nora smiled; the child said it as if she wished the fact to be properly appreciated.
 
"I meant, what is your Christian name?"
 
"Angelina; though I'm generally known as Angel, you see it's shorter; though I don't pretend that there's anything of the angel about me, because there isn't."
 
"I fancy I'm tired, my head aches; do you think you could let me have some tea?"
 
"Course I could; are you going to do for yourself, or are we going to do for you?"
 
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
 
"Are we going to do your marketing, or are you going to do it for yourself? If you take my advice you'll do it for yourself; it'll save you trouble in the end, and then there won't be no bother about the bills. The last lodger we had in these rooms he never could be got to see that he'd had what he had had, there was always a rumpus. Quarter of a pound of tea a week he used to have, yet he never could understand how ever it got into his bill. I'll let you have a cup of tea, and some bread and butter, and perhaps an egg; then afterwards I dare say you might like to go out and lay in a few stores for yourself." The girl turned as she was leaving the room to supply the new-comer with a piece of information. "Number 1, Swan Street, Stoke Newington, S.E., that's the address you're now in, in case you might be wanting to tell your friends."
 
In Swan Street Nora continued to reside, while the days went by, though she never told her friends. From Cloverlea, and the position of a great heiress, with all the world at her feet to pick and choose from, to Swan Street and less than eight pounds between her and beggary, was a change indeed. Used only to a scale of expenditure in which cost was never counted she was incapable of making t............