“I see,” said she cheerfully. “What mamma calls a ‘gentlewoman.’”
“That’s it exactly. And it means a woman who is not gentle to anybody out of her own ‘set,’ doesn’t it?”
Poor Chris wanted to laugh, but was too loyal to her mother to indulge the inclination. But Mr. Bradfield caught the little convulsive sound which intimated that she was amused, and he beamed upon her more benignantly than he had done yet.
“I see, then,” she began, in the preternaturally solemn tone of one who has been caught in unseemly hilarity, “that I am here on false pretences, as it were. If I had not been a—a ‘gentlewoman’”—again she suppressed a giggle—“you would have had no scruple about my making myself useful.”
Mr. Bradfield, evidently delighted by the view the girl took of things, came a little nearer to the piano.
“You are a sensible girl,” he said, with admiration. “Now, if your mother were like you——” he went on regretfully, and stopped.
“If she were, you wouldn’t have your house kept so well,” said Chris, merrily. “I’m no use at all in a house, everybody always says. They used to make me play dance music, because there was nothing else I could do.”
“Dance music!” echoed Mr. Bradfield hopefully. “I thought you young ladies never condescended to anything beneath a sonata?”
Chris laughed.