“Shall I help in the selling?”
“You’re sure to be roped in at sale-time. That’s only once a year, thank God, and that was over last month. On the whole, we’ve got a very good berth there; I fancy quite different to shop-girls, or anything like that. You get a topping meal in the middle of the day—they say old Madam is frightfully keen on the girls being well-fed. It’s a fad of hers. There’s a housekeeper in the basement, an old woman called Entwhistle, and she looks after the meals. There’s a first and second table for dinner.”
“Are there enough of you for that?”
“Oh, yes. There are two young ladies in the millinery, and a fitter besides. And surely to goodness,” said Miss Graham, “you know enough to know that the shop couldn’t be left to look after itself for an hour in the middle of the day.”
Lydia was not pleased at the slighting tone employed by her visitor, and replied briefly:
“I suppose not.”
Then her natural instinct to engage the liking, and, if possible, the friendship of those with whom her lot might be thrown, made her exclaim frankly:
“I shan’t know anything at first, I’m afraid. But I hope you’ll help me a little.”
“Oh,” said Miss Graham matter-of-factly, “I shan’t have anything much to do with you. Old Madam only sent round to say I was to come and look you up because there was nobody else. Miss Ryott is on her holiday, and won’t get back till to-morrow, and Miss Saxon is a new-comer herself.”
She rose, apparently indifferent to the effect of extreme ungraciousness that her speech might well have produced.