And all through Park Lane and Mayfair, caretakers and
gaunt cats were the traces that the caste on which Esther depended had
left of its departed presence. She was coming from the Alexandra Hotel,
where she had heard a kitchen-maid was wanted. Mrs. Lewis had urged her to
wait until people began to come back to town. Good situations were rarely
obtainable in the summer months; it would be bad policy to take a bad one,
even if it were only for a while. Besides, she had saved a little money,
and, feeling that she required a rest, had determined to take this advice.
But as luck would have it Jackie fell ill before she had been at Dulwich a
week. His illness made a big hole in her savings, and it had become
evident that she would have to set to work and at once.
She turned into the park. She was going north, to a registry office near
Oxford Street, which Mrs. Lewis had recommended. Holborn Row was difficult
to find, and she had to ask the way very often, but she suddenly knew that
she was in the right street by the number of servant-girls going and
coming from the office, and in company with five others Esther ascended a
gloomy little staircase. The office was on the first floor. The doors were
open, and they passed into a special odour of poverty, as it were, into an
atmosphere of mean interests.
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