Betty Trevor | Page 4

room, so that Betty was obliged to do her simple dressing for dinner by the aid of a candle, whose flickering beams seemed intent on lighting every corner of the room, and leaving the mirror in inky darkness. It was only within the last three months that Dr Trevor had left his old-fashioned house in Bloomsbury, hoping that the change of residence would help him in his ambition to extend his practice among a better class of patients. The neighbourhood was new to his family, and none of the residents of the Square had so far taken any notice of their presence. Calling is not usual in London unless there is some personal interest involved, and no doubt the occupants of more aristocratic houses looked down with contempt on the sandwiched row of shabby windows which belonged to them only on sufferance. If the neighbours showed no interest in the doctor's family, the Trevors, on the contrary, felt a devouring interest in everyone around them. They had invented nicknames for all the residents in the northern row, of which the schoolroom possessed the best view, before they had been a week in their new quarters. A glance at the Directory in their father's consulting-room would have solved the problem at once, but that was a practical and commonplace method of procedure which made no appeal to their imaginations. Nicknames were a thousand times better, because you could manufacture them to suit!
The two old maiden ladies who lived in Number 15 were Emily and Hannah. Emily was dressy, wore a false front, and always took precedence of her sister, who was small and mousy in demeanour. It was apparent to the meanest intellect that a godmother had bequeathed her fortune to Emily, and that she gave her sister a home and generally supported her, for which generosity Hannah was duly thankful. The two old ladies breakfasted in bed every morning, went out for drives at eleven and three o'clock, ("ambles," Miles called them in scornful reference to the pace of the sleek old horses), retired to their rooms for naps after lunch, ate a hearty dinner at eight, and settled down for the night at ten o'clock.
It does not require the skill of a Sherlock Holmes to discover such proceedings on the part of our neighbours. The study of electric lights on gloomy autumn days is wonderfully informing! Number 16 was uninteresting,--only a stupid man and his wife, who looked like a hundred other men and their wives; and who had tiresome silk curtains drawn across the lower panes of their windows, so that it was impossible to obtain a glimpse of the rooms. Number 17, however, more than ever made up for this disappointment, for there lived "The Pretty Lady" beloved by one and all. She was tall, and dark, and young; almost like a girl, and Betty darkly suspected her of being engaged, for she looked so beamingly happy, and was often seen walking about with a tall, handsome man in the shiniest of top-hats. The door of Number 17 was somewhat out of the line of vision, so that it was not always easy to see who went in and out, but the young couple often passed the corner of the Square, and always seemed to be in radiant spirits. Once when the pretty lady was wearing a new coat, Edwin (of course he was Edwin!) fell behind a pace or two to study the effect, and softly clapped his hands in approval. It must be nice, Betty thought wistfully, to be engaged, and have someone who liked you the best of all, and brought you home chocolates and flowers! She was anxious to know who formed the other members of the household, but Jill said there was only an invalid mother, who said, "Go about as much as ever you can, my darling. Don't think about me! The young should always be happy;" and this was accepted by all as a natural and satisfactory explanation.
There were no children to be found in the whole length of the terrace. The landlords, no doubt, had too much regard for their white enamel and costly wall-papers to welcome tenants with large families. The "Pampered Pet" in Number 14 was the nearest approach to a child, and she must have been sixteen at least. Her father was a General Somebody out in India, and her mother remained in England to superintend the Darling's education, and see that she did not get her feet wet. As soon as she was eighteen she would be presented at Court, taken out to India, and married to the Viceroy at the end of her first season.
The Pet's bedroom was on the third storey of the house, and as its windows faced the gardens of the