Polly blushed. "Fy, Tilly! That wouldn't be ladylike."
Tilly's big bosom rose and fell in a sigh. "What's a lark never is."
Jinny giggled, agreeably scandalized: "What things you do say, Till! Don't let ma 'ear you, that's all."
"Ma be blowed!—'Ow does this look now, Polly?" And across the wax-cloth Tilly pushed a copybook, in which she had laboriously inscribed a prim maxim the requisite number of times.
Polly laid down her work and knitted her brows over the page.
"Well ... it's better than the last one, Tilly," she said gently, averse to hurting her pupil's feelings. "But still not quite good enough. The f's, look, should be more like this." And taking a steel pen she made several long-tailed f's, in a tiny, pointed hand.
Tilly yielded an ungrudging admiration. "'Ow well you do it, Poll! But I HATE writing. If only ma weren't so set on it!"
"You'll never be able to write yourself to a certain person, 'oos name I won't mention, if you don't 'urry up and learn," said Jinny, looking sage.
"What's the odds! We've always got Poll to write for us," gave back Tilly, and lazily stretched out a large, plump hand to recover the copybook. "A certain person'll never know—or not till it's too late."
"Here, Polly dear," said Jinny, and held out a book. "I know it now."