“None—I’ll tell you all about it, as soon as I’ve had my tea. I’m so thirsty, and so hungry—and——” Here she reached for the loaf and began to cut it.
“And tired,” said her sister, concluding the sentence; “you walked home, Rose, and it’s five long miles.”
“No, I took a penn’orth of bus—instead of a bun—and now I’ll take it out of the loaf, O housekeeper. Ah!” raising a cup of tea to her lips, “this is delicious. I was thinking of this happy moment, as I paddled along in the rain.—What have you done, Joe?”
“I went to Queen’s Gate with the miniatures, and saw Miss Wiggin. She was so disagreeable, and cross and dissatisfied. She said it was not the least like her—or if it is, she had no idea she was so plain.”
“I could have told her that,” declared Rose.
“And—she supposed, as it was an order—and she muttered something about charity, which I could not afford to hear—that she must take it—when it was altered to her satisfaction. She insists on a better complexion, and a new nose; so I have brought it home instead of the three guineas—and I know I shall never please her. How did you fare?”
“Much the same! It has been a bad day altogether. I took my illustrations of ‘A Drowned Girl’s Diary’ to Puffit & Smack, and the Art Editor, a superior young man, with a pince-nez and a high-pitched nose, received the sketches between two disdainful fingers, and then examined them through his glasses, and said:
“‘Dear me, Miss Hay! These will never do. You have no idea of anatomy; this girl has two elbows in her arm—and the man is a freak! The editor has complained of your work, and—er—I’m really afraid we cannot—er—accept any more of it; you might try the comic papers.’”
“Oh dear!” ejaculated the housekeeper.
“Fancy his attempting to be funny, whilst he took the bread out of my mouth. The Week End is my only employer, since the Kestrel dropped me—and died.”