Miss Pringle dropped the hand she had been stroking to clasp both her own over the handle of her umbrella. 'Well, I don't like to say anything against her now she's dead, poor thing, but Miss Wickham was the most detestable old woman I ever met.'
'Still,' said Nora slowly, looking toward the French window which opened on the garden, at the sun streaming through the drawn blinds, 'I don't suppose one can live so long with anyone and not be a little sorry to part with them forever. I was Miss Wickham's companion for ten years.'
'How you stood it! Exacting, domineering, disagreeable!'
'Yes, I suppose she was. Because she paid me a salary, she thought I wasn't a human being. I certainly never knew anyone with such a bitter tongue. At first I used to cry every night when I went to bed because of the things she said to me. But I got used to them.'
'I wonder you didn't leave her. I would have.' Miss Pringle attempting to delude herself with the idea that she was a mettlesome, high-spirited person who would stand no nonsense, was immensely diverting to Nora. To hide an irrepressible smile, she went over to a bowl of roses which stood on one of the little tables and pretended to busy herself with their rearrangement.
'Posts as lady's companions are not so easy to find, I fancy. At least I remember that when I got this one I was thought to be extremely lucky not to have to wait twice as long. I don't imagine things have bettered much in our line, do you?'
'That they have not,' rejoined Miss Pringle gloomily. 'They tell me the agents' books are full of people wanting situations. Before I went to Mrs. Hubbard I was out of one for nearly two years.' Her voice shook a little at the recollection. Her poor, tired, weather-beaten face quivered as if she were about to cry.
'It's not so had for you,' said Nora soothingly. 'You can always go and stay with your brother.'
'You've a brother, too.'
'Ah, yes. But he's farming in Canada. He has all he could do to keep himself. He couldn't keep me, too.'
'How is he doing now?' asked Miss Pringle, to whom any new topic of conversation was of interest. She had so little opportunity for conversation at the irreproachable Mrs. Hubbard's, that lady having apparently inherited a limited set of ideas from her late husband, 'as Mr. Hubbard used to say' being her favorite introduction to any topic. Miss Pringle saw herself making quite a little success at dinner that night--there was to be a guest, she believed--by saying: 'A friend of mine has just been telling me of the success her brother is having way out in Canada.' 'He is getting on?' she asked encouragingly.
'Oh, he's doing very well. He's got a farm of his own. He wrote over a few years ago and told me he could always give me a home if I wanted one.'
'Canada's so far off,' observed Miss Pringle deprecatingly. Her tone seemed to imply that there were other disadvantages which she would refrain from mentioning.
Now while Nora had always had the same vague feeling that Canada, in addition to being an immense distance off, was not quite, well, it wasn't England--that was indisputable--she found herself unreasonably irritated by her friend's tone.
'Not when yon get there,' she replied sharply.
Miss Pringle evidently deemed it best to change the subject. 'Why don't you draw the blinds?' she asked after a moment.
'It is horrid, isn't it? But somehow I thought I ought to wait till they came back from the funeral. But just see the sunlight; it must be beautiful out of doors. Why don't we walk about in the garden? Do you care for a wrap? I'll send Kate to fetch you something, if you do.'
Miss Pringle having decided that her coat was sufficiently warm if they did not sit anywhere too long and just walked in the paths where it was sure not to be damp, they went out of the gloomy drawing-room into the bright afternoon sunshine.
'Don't you love a garden when things are just beginning to show their heads? I sometimes think that spring is the most beautiful of all the seasons. It's like watching the birth of a new world. I think the most human thing about poor Miss Wickham was her fondness for flowers. She always said she hoped she'd never die in winter.'
To Miss Pringle, the note of regret which crept now and again
