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 partition from a larger one, and lit by a grimy window in the roof. It was provided with a bedstead, a mattress, a chest of drawers, a washing stand and a crazy looking-glass.

"When the boy comes, he'll find you a couple o' blankets, I daresay. Meantime you can fall to as soon as you like."

June lost no time in unpacking. She then exchanged her new mourning for an old dress in which to begin work. As she did so her depression was terrible. The death of her mother, a month ago, had meant the loss of everything she valued in the world. There was no one else, no other thing that mattered. But she had promised that she would be a brave girl and face life with a stout heart, and she was going to be as good as her word.

For that reason she did not allow herself to spend much time over the changing of her dress. She would have liked to sit on the edge of the small bed in that dismal room and weep. The future was an abyss. Her prospects were nil. She had ambition, but she lacked the kind of education and training that could get her out of the rut; and all the money she had in the world, something less than twenty pounds, was in her purse in a roll of notes, together with a few odd shillings and coppers. Nothing more remained of the sum that had been realized by the sale of her home, which her mother and she had striven so hard to keep together. And when this was gone she would have to live on the charity of her Uncle Si, who was said to be a very hard man and for whom she had already conceived an odd dislike, or go out and find something to do.