The Veiled Man by Ambrose Pratt — Read

There lived together at that time, in a tiny flat at St. John's Wood, two young women sworn to bachelorhood, who had been schoolfellows of Francine Toombes. Their names were Letitia Blake and Judith Ramsay.

They were journalists, and both were employed upon the reporting staff of a well-known society newspaper. It had long been their custom to spend a yearly holiday with Francine, and all three were attached friends. Letitia Blake was a tall and handsome brunette, twenty-six years of age, a clever pen-woman and extremely popular in her profession. Judith Ramsay was small, fair, plain, and thirty-two. They were cousins by marriage, and orphans. They had no one to consider but themselves, and none to call them to account for their independent, and Bohemian ways. Letitia earned three pounds a week, Judith a paltry twenty shillings, but their purse was a joint one and shared as frankly as their thoughts and lives. Their acquaintances called them the Siamese twins, and, despite their poverty, there were not to be found two happier or more care free girls in London.