"Three hundred, then," Mrs. Bates called into the next room.
"Oh, goodness me!" cried Jane, despairingly, "I don't want one woman to give it all. I've got a whole list here. You're the first one I've seen."
"Well, how much, then? Fifty?"
"Fifty, yes. That's quite as much as I expected—more."
"Fifty, Miss Peters; payable to Jane Marshall." She looked at Jane quizzically. "You are unique, sure enough."
"I want to be fair," protested Jane.
The door closed on Miss Peters. Mrs. Bates dropped her voice. "Did you ever have a private secretary?"
"Me?" called Jane. "I'm my own."
"Keep it that way," said Mrs. Bates, impressively. "Don't ever change—no matter how many engagements and appointments and letters and dates you come to have. You'll never spend a happy day afterwards. Tutors are bad enough—but, thank goodness, my boys are past that age. And men servants are bad enough—every time I want to stir in my own house I seem to have a footman on each toe and a butler standing on my train; however, people in our position—well, Granger insists, you know. But Minnie Peters—Minnie Peters is the worst of all. Every so often"—in a low voice and with her eye on the door—"she has one of her humble days, and then I want to die. That was what was the matter before you came—I didn't really mean to seem cross to you. I just have to take her and shake her and say, 'Now, Minnie Peters, how can you be so bad to me? How can you think I would do anything to hurt your feelings, when your mother was my very best friend? Why are you always looking for a chance to find a slight, when'—Oh, thanks, thanks!"—Miss Peters having appeared with the check. Mrs. Bates clapped on the signature at her little old desk. "There, my child. And good-luck to the club-room.
"And now business is over," she continued. "Do you like my posies?" She nodded towards the window where, thanks to the hair-brush, a row of flowers in a long narrow box blew about in the draught.