Betty Trevor | Page 4

with pictures and photographs, and the
owner's love of beauty and order showed itself in the arrangement of
the furniture, and the careful setting out of a few treasured ornaments.
There was no gas in the 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