And we said ‘A1.’
And all the evening we talked of our fortune that we had begun to make.
Nobody came next day, but the day after a lady came to ask for money to build an orphanage for the children of dead sailors. And we saw her. I went in with Alice. And when we had explained to her that we had only a shilling and we wanted it for something else, Alice suddenly said, ‘Would you like some wine?’
And the lady said, ‘Thank you very much,’ but she looked surprised.
She was not a young lady, and she had a mantle with beads, and the beads had come off in places—leaving a browny braid showing, and she had printed papers about the dead sailors in a sealskin bag, and the seal had come off in places, leaving the skin bare. We gave her a tablespoonful of the wine in a proper wine-glass out of the sideboard, because she was a lady. And when she had tasted it she got up in a very great hurry, and shook out her dress and snapped her bag shut, and said, ‘You naughty, wicked children! What do you mean by playing a trick like this? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! I shall write to your Mamma about it. You dreadful little girl!—you might have poisoned me. But your Mamma...’
Then Alice said, ‘I’m very sorry; the butcher liked it, only he said it was sweet. And please don’t write to Mother. It makes Father so unhappy when letters come for her!’—and Alice was very near crying.
‘What do you mean, you silly child?’ said the lady, looking quite bright and interested. ‘Why doesn’t your Father like your Mother to have letters—eh?’
And Alice said, ‘OH, you...!’ and began to cry, and bolted out of the room.
Then I said, ‘Our Mother is dead, and will you please go away now?’
The lady looked at me a minute, and then she looked quite different, and she said, ‘I’m very sorry. I didn’t know. Never mind about the wine. I daresay your little sister meant it kindly.’ And she looked round the room just like the butcher had done. Then she said again, ‘I didn’t know—I’m very sorry...’