“Yes, mum.”
“What’s your name?”
“Maggie, mum. And, if you please, mother’s sent me to ask if you’ll kindly give her a funeral card.”
“A funeral card?”
“Yes. Of Mr. Povey. She’s been expecting of one, and she thought as how perhaps you’d forgotten it, especially as she wasn’t asked to the funeral.”
The girl stopped.
Constance perceived that by mere negligence she had seriously wounded the feelings of Maggie, senior. The truth was, she had never thought of Maggie. She ought to have remembered that funeral cards were almost the sole ornamentation of Maggie’s abominable cottage.
“Certainly,” she replied after a pause. “Miss Insull, there are a few cards left in the desk, aren’t there? Please put me one in an envelope for Mrs. Hollins.”
She gave the heavily bordered envelope to the ruddy wench, who enfolded it in her apron, and with hurried, shy thanks ran off.
“Tell your mother I send her a card with pleasure,” Constance called after the girl.