Then Miss Warrender gave an account of the real state of affairs. “The letter was there on the table, dated the Elms, Underwood, Highcombe, as if—as if it was a county family; just as we put it ourselves on our paper.”
“But far finer than ours—gilt, and paper so polished and shining, and a quarter of an inch thick. Oh, much finer than ours!”
“Ours, of course, will be black-edged for a long, long time to come; there could not be any comparison,” said Minnie, with a sigh. “But think of the assurance of such people! I am so glad to have found you alone, for we couldn’t have talked about it before the rector. And I believe if we hadn’t gone there just at the right moment she would have accepted. I told her mamma would never employ her again.”
“I never had very much opinion of that little thing,” said Mrs. Wilberforce. “She is a great deal too fine. If her grandmother was a sensible person, she would have put a stop to all those feathers and flowers and things.”
“Still,” said Minnie, with some severity, “a young woman who is a dressmaker and gets the fashion-books, and is perhaps in the way of temptation, may wear a feather in her hat; but that is not to say that she should encourage immorality, and make for anybody who asks her: especially considering the way we have all taken her up.”
“Who is it that encourages immorality?” said a different voice, over Mrs. Wilberforce’s head—quite a different voice; a man’s voice, for one thing, which always changes the atmosphere a little. It was the rector himself, who came across the lawn in the ease of a shooting-coat, with his hands in his pockets. He wore a long coat when he went out in the parish, but at home there can be no doubt that he liked to be at his ease. He was a man who was too easy in general, and might, perhaps, if his wife had not scented harm from the beginning, have compromised himself by calling at the Elms.
“Oh, please!” cried Minnie, with a blush. “Mrs. Wilberforce will tell you. We really have not time to stay any longer. Not any tea, thank you. We must be running away.”
“There is nothing to be so sensitive about,” said the clergyman’s wife. “Of course Herbert knows that you must know: you are not babies. It is Lizzie Hampson, the dressmaker, who has been asked to go and work at the Elms.”
“Oh!” said the rector. He showed himself wonderfully reasonable—more reasonable than anyone could have expected. “I wouldn’t let her go there if I was you. It’s not a fit place for a girl.”
“We are perfectly well aware of that,” said Mrs. Wilberforce. “I warned you from the beginning. But the thing is, who is to prevent her from going? Minnie has told her plainly, it appears, and I will speak to her, and as her clergyman I should say it was your duty to say a word; but whether we shall succeed, that is a different matter. These creatures seem to have a sort of real attraction for everything that is wrong.”
“We all have that, I’m afraid, my dear.”
“But not all in that way. There may be a bias, but it doesn’t take the same form. Do sit down, girls, and take your tea, like reasonable creatures. She shall never enter the rectory, of course, if—and if you are sure Mrs. Warrender will do the same. But you know she is very indulgent—more indulgent than I should be in her place. There was that story, you know, about Fanny, the laundry-maid. I don’t think we shall do much if your dear mother relents, and says the girl is penitent as soon as she cries. She ought to know girls better than that. A little thing makes them cry: but penitence—that is getting rarer and rarer every day.”
“There would be no need for penitence in this case. The girl is a very respectable girl. Don’t let her go there, that’s all: and give me a cup of tea.”
“Isn’t that like a man!” said Mrs. Wilberforce. “Don’t let her go there, and give him a cup of tea!—the one just as easy as the other. I am sure I tell you often enough, Herbert, what with all that is done for them and said about them, the poor people are getting more and more unmanageable every day.”
“Our family has always been Liberal,” said Minnie. “I think the poor people have their rights just as we have. They ought to be educated, and all that.”
“Very well,” said the other lady; “when you have educated them up to thinking themselves as good—oh, what am I saying? far better—than their betters, you’ll see what will come of it. I for one am quite prepared. I pity the people who deceive themselves. Herbert chooses to laugh, but I can’t laugh; it is much too serious for that.”
“There will be peace in our days,” said the rector, “and after all, Fanny, we can’t have a revolution coming because Lizzie Hampson—”
“Lizzie Hampson,” said his wife solemnly, “is a sign of the times. She may be nothing in herself—none of them are anything in themselves—but I call her a sign of the times.”
“What a grand name for a little girl!” he said, with a laugh. But he added seriously, “I wish that house belonged to Theo, or someone we could bring influence to bear upon; but what does a city man care? I wish we could do as the Americans do, and put rollers under it, and cart it away out of the parish.”
“Can the Americans do that?”
“They say so. They can do every sort of wonderful thing, I believe.”
“And that is what we are coming to!” said Mrs. Wilberforce, with an air of indignant severity, as if this had been the
