She was a little subdued when she arose next morning to find "The Pictur Gallery" at eight o'clock in a sort of twilight gloom consequent upon the rain and the fog outside. After the glorious airs, the limitless freedom of the Moor of Creagh it was an experience calculated to damp the bravest spirit.
She had to ring three times before receiving the smallest attention from the squint-eyed maid, and Agnes, tired with the unexpected excitement of the previous day, had not felt herself well enough to get up before breakfast, as she had fully intended.
Much ringing of bells, some altercations in the passages, and a variety of odours were the outstanding characteristics of the Cromer Street house in the early morning hours.
At a quarter past nine Isla's French breakfast was brought up on a slatternly tray, and, finding it impossible to drink the coffee, she had to ask--and she did so in quite humble tones--for a fresh pot of tea.
"I ain't 'ad no borders about brekfus for 'The Pitcsher Gallery,' Miss," quoth Arabella in a rather high and mighty voice. "But I'll get the tea. It ain't all beer and skittles 'ere of a mornin', I kin tell yer, wiv hall the bells in the 'ouse a-ringin' at onct, the missus in 'er bed, and ole Flatfeet on the warpath in the kitching."
When the door had closed Isla sat down on the front of her bed and laughed till the tears rolled down her cheeks. The dreariness of the place in which she sat, the dead ashes on the cold hearth, the indescribable lack of the comforts--even of the decencies--of life appalled her.
Yet just in such conditions, and in others infinitely worse, must thousands of Londoners awake to the duty of each new day. She wondered that the multitude had any heart for the day's work.
She could not start to clean her room or light a fire, and she had been reared in the belief that a bed required a thorough airing before it could be made.
After she had partaken of her meagre breakfast therefore she opened the window and, donning her mackintosh and heavy boots, prepared to sally forth. Even the streets would be preferable to her present surroundings.
She decided not to go up to see Agnes, who probably felt the situation more acutely than she herself did. Perhaps, after all, it might be better, if it was not indeed absolutely necessary, that she should find some other lodging in a smaller house, where she could have a sitting-room and a bedroom. The prospect of unlimited hours spent in "The Pictur Gallery" was a little dismaying.