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 descended from his box, and thrust his head in the window to ask where she wanted to go.

"I don't know, cabman," said Prudence helplessly. "I am looking for apartments. Do you know of any that are nice and respectable?"

"Why, yessem, I do," said the man, "which my wife's own sister, she keeps 'em in Victoria Crescent, an' clean an' respectable they are, that I'll hanswer for; an' she cooks splendid."

"Then drive there, please," said Prudence apathetically, and fell back into doleful musings, until the cab stopped at the address.

Mrs. Perkins, the cabman's sister-in-law, married to an ex-butler, was a kindly, cheerful body, who willingly accepted a week's rent in advance in lieu of references. In her sage-green parlour Prudence sat down with a feeling of rest and privacy, to which she had long been a stranger, and braced herself as best she might for the ordeal before her.

"My poor darling Gussie," the good-*hearted creature murmured over and over again. "What you must suffer! My dear sister, what must you think of me for sending