“I don’t see how,” was the answer, and there was a fragment of a smile on Richard’s face, as if it struck him as a wild scheme, that Ethel should undertake, single handed, to evangelise Cocksmoor.
It was such a damper as to be most mortifying to an enthusiastic girl, and she drew into herself in a moment.
They walked home in silence, and when Richard warned her that she was not keeping her dress out of the dirt, it sounded like a sarcasm on her projects, and, with a slightly pettish manner, she raised the unfortunate skirt, its crape trimmings greatly bespattered with ruddy mud. Then recollecting how mamma would have shaken her head at that very thing, she regretted the temper she had betrayed, and in a larmoyante voice, sighed, “I wish I could pick my way better. Some people have the gift, you have hardly a splash, and I’m up to the ankles in mud.”
“It is only taking care,” said Richard; “besides your frock is so long, and full. Can’t you tuck it up and pin it?”
“My pins always come out,” said Ethel, disconsolately, crumpling the black folds into one hand, while she hunted for a pin with the other.
“No wonder, if you stick them in that way,” said Richard. “Oh! you’ll tear that crape. Here, let me help you. Don’t you see, make it go in and out, that way; give it something to pull against.”
Ethel laughed. “That’s the third thing you have taught me—to thread a needle, tie a bow, and stick in a pin! I never could learn those things of any one else; they show, but don’t explain the theory.”
They met Dr. May at the entrance of the town, very tired, and saying he had been a long tramp, all over the place, and Mrs. Hoxton had been boring him with her fancies. As he took Richard’s arm he gave the long heavy sigh that always fell so painfully on Ethel’s ear.
“Dear, dear, dear papa!” thought she, “my work must also be to do all I can to comfort him.”
Her reflections were broken off. Dr. May exclaimed, “Ethel, don’t make such a figure of yourself. Those muddy ankles and petticoats are not fit to be seen—there, now you are sweeping the pavement. Have you no medium? One would think you had never worn a gown in your life before!”