This feeling lasted even when, after some discussion, she gained her point and was on her way to call on Miss Balquidder. She went round and round the Square many times, trying to fix in her mind word for word what she meant to say; revealing no more of the family history than was absolutely necessary, and stating her business in the briefest, hardest, most matter-of-fact way—putting it as a transaction between employer and employed, in which there was no more favor asked or bestowed than could possibly be avoided. And as the sharp east wind blew across her at every corner, minute by minute she felt herself growing more fierce, and hard, and cold.
"This will never do. I shall be wicked by-and-by. I must go in and get it over."
Perhaps it was as well. Well for her, morally as physically, that there should have been that sudden change from the blighting weather outside to the warm, well-lighted room where the good rich woman sat at her early and solitary tea.
Very solitary it looked—the little table in the centre of that large handsome parlor, with the one cup and saucer, the one easy-chair. And as Hilary entered she noticed, amidst all this comfort and luxury, the still, grave, almost sad expression which solitary people always get to wear.
But the next minute Miss Balquidder had turned round, and risen, smiling.
"Miss Leaf, how very kind of you to come and see me! Just the day before the wedding, too, when you must be so busy! Sit down and tell me all about it. But first, my dear, how wet your boots are! Let me take them off at once."
Which she did, sending for her own big slippers, and putting them on the tiny feet with her own hands.
Hilary submitted—in truth she was too much surprised to resist.
Miss Balquidder had, like most folk, her opinions or "crotchets"—as they might be—and one of them was, to keep her business and friendly relations entirely distinct and apart. Whenever she went to Kensington or her other establishments she was always emphatically "the mistress"—a kindly and even motherly mistress, certainly, but still authoritative, decided. Moreover, it was her invariable rule to treat all her employees alike—"making no step-bairns" among them. Thus for some time it had happened that Hilary had been, and felt herself to be, just Miss Leaf, the book keeper, doing her duty to Miss Balquidder, her employer, and neither expecting nor attaining any closer relation.
But in her own house, or it might be from the sudden apparition of that young face at her lonely fireside, Miss Balquidder appeared quite different.