"But pears eat straight through—sweet to the pip," I said, gazing quizzically at my latest sketch. "Betty is a pear."
"Foolish boy, keep your illusions. You can clean your brushes in them. Degas saw wonderful things in his models—things hidden from the vulgar eye."
"I am glad you mentioned Degas. I mean to see more than this Betty of the Ballet. Take me to your class."
"Oh, I don't dance in the class. I have a private lesson when the girls are gone. You can come this afternoon at four."
We made a long journey on the top of an omnibus to a hole somewhere in Lambeth. Squalor appeared to grope under railway arches, and penury to moan through flapping fragments of clothing that swung at intervals along the narrow paths, behind rows of second-hand furniture and groups of dishevelled infants.
"A choice locality," I growled.
"Cheap," exclaimed Laura. "When you put your shoulder to the wheel you mustn't mind greasing your jacket."
She was a plucky girl—glad, like many others, to grasp the only opportunity of self-support. My uncle, a Cheshire parson, had died peacefully, leaving four girls and six boys with bucolic appetites to the charge of Providence.
"Here we are at last," my cousin said, leaping down with agility, and hardly stopping the omnibus for her exit.