"Come down as you are, then," Miss Mason urged, "and I will too! I hate changing. This yellow rag is good enough for the old tabbies we get here."
Esther went half-way down the stairs and came back.
"Charlie can stay where he is till bedtime," June declared. "You can come up and fetch him then. Hurry, or you'll be late."
Esther went down to her room, feeling more light-hearted than she had done for a long time.
As she unpacked her boxes and tidied her hair she could hear June Mason moving about upstairs, singing cheerily.
"I'm going to like her--I'm going to like her awfully," she told herself. She hurried to be ready in time, but the rather unmelodious dinner-bell had clanged through the house twice before June came to the door.
"You've unpacked, then?" she said. She looked round the small room approvingly. "I can see you're one of the tidy ones," she said. "I'm not; I wish I were. However, we can't all be the same. Are you ready?"
She took Esther's arm and they went downstairs together.
"Every one knows you're coming," June said as they neared the dining-room. "Every one always knows everything that goes on here. Don't take any notice if they stare a lot; they must stare at something, poor darlings. I'll tell you who they all are and all about them."
The dining-room was a long, narrow sort of room that looked as if it once had been two rooms recently thrown into one; the floor was covered with slippery green linoleum, and there was a long table running almost the length of the room, with a few smaller ones on either side.
A grey-haired woman with pebble glasses stood at the head of the long table; Esther recognised her as the proprietress, Mrs. Elders.
She said good-evening to Esther and stared frigidly at June, as if she did not like to see the two girls together. She did not approve of the little face cream lady, though she was careful never to say so, as June was one of her best paying propositions.
Esther was glad when they reached their own table; glad, too, that she was more or less out of the way of curious glances.
The dinner was plain, but infinitely superior to the fare she had had to put up with in the Brixton Road.
"Do you have all your meals here?" she asked June presently.