Pollyooly was quite unaffected by this, for in the days when she had lived in the dreadful fear that she and the Lump might be driven by necessity into the workhouse, she had gone shabby herself.
She knew that Millicent's mother, who had once been a dancer, was now a charwoman, often out of work, and in feeble health.

It was Millicent's perpetual complaint that she herself was so slow growing up to the age at which she would be earning money and supporting her ailing mother.
Down the vista of the future she saw a splendid vision in which her mother should always have a bloater with her tea.

To Pollyooly Millicent always looked hungry.
It was Millicent's great pleasure to sit with the Lump on her knee in the intervals of their work, mothering him as long as he would suffer it; and it was her privilege to take his left hand as Pollyooly led him from Soho, across the dangerous crossings to the safe stretch of the embankment from Charing-Cross to the Temple.

As they went Pollyooly and Millicent talked of the price of provisions and the trials of housekeeping.
But for the whole week before Pollyooly's trip to Devon Millicent had not been to the class.

Pollyooly enquired and Madame Correlli enquired the reason for her absence, but none of the other pupils could tell them.