ANGEL PAVEMENT

gone to Burma. I won't go near her now for months/*
she added, really enjoying the fact that Miss Tattersby
could be so ferocious, so unpredictable in manner. "I'll
send her notes as some of the others always do. Don't
you go near her to-night."

Miss Matfield said she had no intention of doing so,
and then hurried into her room, where she came to the
conclusion, as she tidied herself for dinner, that it was
really Tatters who made the Burpenfield endurable for
people like Kersey, for she gave their lives a colouring
of danger and drama, poor old things. At dinner, she
had to share a table with Isabel Cadnam, the languid
Morrison, and a recent arrival who had taken Evelyn
Ansdell's old room, and annoyed Miss Matfield just be-
cause she was not Evelyn Ansdell. But, apart from that,
this new girl was an irritating creature. Her name was
Snaresbrook; she had untidy dark hair, huge staring eyes
(heavily made up), and white, flabby, sagging cheeks;
and she was soulful, gushing and psychic. So far she had
been a great success because she went round talking to
people about themselves very sympathetically, offering
to tell their fortunes, and going in tremendously for this
heart-to-heart business. Miss Matfield, a tougher subject
than most, refused to be taken in. When she sat down
the other three were already there, and were talking
about work.

"I'll bet youll agree, Mattie," said Miss Cadnam.

"What's that?" inquired Miss Matfield.

"I was just saying that it's part of the cussedness of
everything that nearly every girl here has the wrong job.
I mean, if you like one kind of thing, then it's ten to one
you have to work in a place where it's all another kind
of thing. I've just discovered that Snaresbrook here