“A very little,” said Phoebe, who rather piqued herself upon her music, and who was learned in Bach and Beethoven, and had an opinion of her own about Wagner. Mrs. Tom brightened visibly, for her girls played not a little, but a great deal.
“And draw?—but I needn’t ask, for living in London, you’ve got masters at your very door.”
“Not at all, I am sorry to say,” said Phoebe, with a pathetic tone of regret in her voice.
“Lord bless us! Now who’d have thought it? I think nothing a sacrifice to give mine the best of education,” said Mrs. Tom.
XIV
Strangers
“Well, Ursula, how do you do?” said Mrs. Sam Hurst, meeting her young neighbour with outstretched hands. She was a portly good-looking woman with an active mind, and nothing, or next to nothing to do, and instead of being affronted as some persons might have been, she was amused, and indeed flattered, by the suspicion and alarm with which all the young Mays regarded her. Whether she had the least intention of ever giving any justification to their alarms it would be impossible to say, for indeed to a sensible woman of forty-five, well to do and comfortable, a husband with “a temper of his own,” and a large poor unruly family, was, perhaps, not so tempting as he appeared to be to his jealous children. Anyhow she was not at all angry with them for being jealous and afraid of her. She was cordial in her manner to the Mays as to everybody she knew. She asked how Ursula had enjoyed herself, where she had been, what she had seen, and a hundred questions more.
“It is quite delightful to see somebody who has something to tell,” she said when the interrogation was over. “I ask everybody what news, and no one has any news, which is dreadful for me.”
“How can you care for news?” said Ursula, “news! what interest can there be in mere news that doesn’t concern us?”
“You are very foolish, my dear,” said Mrs. Hurst; “what’s to become of you when you’re old, if you don’t like to hear what’s going on? I’m thankful to say I take a great deal, of interest in my fellow-creatures for my part. Now listen, I’ll tell you a piece of news in return for all your information about London. When I was in Tozer’s shop today—I always go there, though they are Dissenters; after all, you know, most tradespeople are Dissenters; some are sorry for it, some think it quite natural that gentle-people and tradespeople should think differently in religious matters; however, what I say is, you can’t tell the difference in butter and bacon between church and dissent, can you now? and Tozer’s is the best shop in the town, certainly the best shop. So as I was in Tozer’s as I tell you, who should come in but old Mrs. Tozer, who once kept it herself—and by her side, figure my astonishment, a young lady! yes, my dear, actually a young lady, in appearance, of course—I mean in appearance—for, as you shall hear, it could be no more than that. So nicely dressed, nothing vulgar or showy, a gown that Elise might have made, and everything to correspond, in perfect taste. Fancy! and you may imagine how I stared. I could not take my eyes off her. I was so astonished that I rubbed up my old acquaintance with the old woman, and asked her how her rheumatism was. I hope it is rheumatism. At all events I called it so, and then she told me as proud as a peacock that it was her granddaughter; fancy, her granddaughter! did you ever hear of such a thing? The other woman in the shop, the present Tozer, called out to her by name. Phoebe they called her. Poor girl, I was so sorry for her. A lady in appearance, and to have to submit to that!”
“Oughtn’t ladies to be called Phoebe?” asked Janey. “Why not? It’s rather a pretty name.”
“That is so like Janey,” said Mrs. Hurst; “I know she is the clever one; but she never can see what one means. It is not being called Phoebe, it is because of her relations that I am sorry for her. Poor girl! educating people out of their sphere does far more harm than good, I always maintain. To see that nice-looking, well-dressed girl in Tozer’s shop, with all the butter boys calling her Phoebe—”
“The butter boys are as good as anyone else,” cried Janey, whose tendencies were democratic. “I dare say she likes her relations as well as we like ours, and better, though they do keep a shop.”
“Oh, Janey!” cried Ursula, whose feelings were touched; then she remembered that her sympathies ought not to flow in the same channel with those of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and continued coldly, “If she had not liked them she need not have come to see them.”
“That is all you know, you girls. You don’t know the plague of relations, and how people have got to humble themselves to keep money in the family, or keep up appearances, especially people that have risen in the world. I declare I think they pay dear for rising in the world, or their poor children pay dear—”
“You seem to take a great deal of interest in the Tozers,” said Ursula, glad to administer a little correction; “even if they came to St. Roque’s I could understand it—but Dissenters!” This arrow struck home.
“Well,” said Mrs. Hurst, colouring, “of all people to take an interest in Dissenters I am the last; but I was struck, I must admit, to see that old Mrs. Tozer, looking like an old washerwoman, with a girl in a twenty-guinea dress, you may take my word for it, though
