"Hilda!" Mrs. Marsh's middle-class virtue was up in arms. "If that is so, you must not associate with her. Our house is lowly (she might have added dirty), lowly, but genteel."
"Now don't you bother, ma. Leave the governess to me. If you talk you'll spoil all."
"All what?" cried Mrs. Marsh, frantic with curiosity.
"H'm, h'm," Hilda nodded again. "Come upstairs, ma, and look over my dresses. I must look particularly well to-morrow night."
"But the clearing and washing-up, Hilda?"
"Oh, the girls can do that when they come in; pigs! It's little enough they do!"
"Your father will want something hot," suggested Mrs. Marsh with compunction.
"Will he! Well, there's cold corned beef and pickles; he can warm them if he likes."
So Mrs. Marsh went upstairs, novel, dressing-gown and all, and spent a happy hour with Hilda over chiffons. Dr. Marsh came home to a cold dinner, and was truly pathetic in the restraint of his language. The picnic-party arrived back hungry and boisterous, to find that as the baker had not called, there was no bread in the house. They lamented, Mrs. Marsh nagged, her husband's patience gave way, and the whole house was as pleasant as Bedlam. Hilda, the cause of the trouble, kept out of it in her room—the only clean room in the house—and stitched away at her costume. She thought of Miriam and smiled. It was not a sweet smile.
"So you're going to spoil my chance, are you, you horrid creature!" she thought. "I'll push you back into the mud you came from—or I'll know the reason why."