Back to Kennington Road by omnibus, riding outside, her eyes and
hair doing execution upon a young man in a very high collar, who
was, she saw, terribly tempted to address her, but, happily for
himself, could not pluck up courage. Polly liked to be addressed by
strange young men; experience had made her so skilful in austere
rebuke.

She rested in her bedroom, as stuffy and disorderly a room as could
have been found in all Kennington Road. Moggie, the general, was
only allowed to enter it in the occupant's presence, otherwise who
knew what prying and filching might go on? She paid a very low rent,
thanks to Mrs. Bubb's good nature, but the strained relations
between them made it possible that she would have to leave, and she
had been thinking to-day that she could very well afford a room in a
better neighbourhood; not that, all things considered, she desired
to quit this house, but Mrs. Bubb took too much upon herself. Mrs.
Bubb was the widow of a police officer; one of her children was in
the Police Orphanage at Twickenham, and for the support of each of
the others she received half a crown a week. This, to be sure,
justified the good woman in a certain spirit of pride; but when it
came to calling names and making unpleasant insinuations--If a young
lady cannot have a harmless and profitable secret, what is the use
of being a young lady?

On the way to her duties at the theatre, about seven o'clock, she
entered a little stationer's shop m an obscure street, and asked
with a smile whether any letter had arrived for her. Yes, there was
one addressed in a careless hand to "Miss Robinson." This, in
another obscure street hard by she opened. On half a sheet of
notepaper was printed with pen and ink the letters _W. S. T._--that