“You have a step-mother too, then?”
“Yes, and no. Mrs. Williams is my father’s second wife, and I am the child of his first. My own mother was”—she looked round her with mock mystery—“a factory lass. And—and so was I till I was fourteen. Then my father made a discovery, and began to grow rich and ambitious. And my mother died—perhaps luckily for her, poor thing—and he buried her and the old life together. But he could not bury me, you know; and if the lady he then married had not had the sweetest disposition in the world, it might have fared ill with me. But she is a kind creature, and she made my civilization as little irksome to me as possible. And that is why step-mother doesn’t seem the right name for her; and there is all my autobiography.”
All the time her busy fingers were making the needle fly through the stocking with a deftness absolutely bewildering to Olivia.
“You are luckier than I have been,” said the young girl, in a low voice.
Miss Williams looked up again, her eyes beaming with sympathetic intelligence.
“Yes, I could see that. My father married up for the second time, while yours——”
“Married down. Yes, down in every way; that’s the worst of it; temper, manners, everything. If she had been different, I should not have minded growing poorer in the least, but it is tiresome to be thrown so much on her society.”
“Yes, there are absolutely no suitable friends about here for you.”
“Well,” said Olivia, laughing, blushing, and hesitating. “I thought so till ten minutes ago.”
Miss Williams in her turn flushed with pleasure. But then she shook her head.