“It isn't silly,” said Jeremy. “Perhaps she'll want more than she really wants. I often do.”
“Oh, you!” said Helen.
“And if for ever so long,” said Jeremy, “she hasn't had enough to eat, she'll want twice as big meals now as other people—to make up.”
“Mother says we've got to remember she's a lady,” said Helen.
“What's the difference,” asked Jeremy, “between a lady and not a lady?”
“Oh, you are!” said Helen. “Why, Aunt Amy's a lady, and Rose isn't.”
“Rose is nicer,” said Jeremy.
Miss Jones had, I am sorry to say, lied to Mrs. Cole in one particular. She had told her that “she had had to do with children all her life,” the fact being that on several occasions some little cousins had come to stay with herself and her brother. On these occasions the little cousins had been so paralysed with terror that discipline had not been difficult. It was from these experiences that Miss Jones flattered herself that “she understood children.”
So audacious a self-confidence is doomed to invite the scornful punishment of the gods.
Miss Jones arrived upon a wet January afternoon, one of those Glebeshire days when the town sinks into a bath of mud and mist and all the pipes run water and the eaves drip and horses splash and only ducks are happy. Out of a blurred lamp-lit dusk stumbled Miss Jones's cab, and out of a blurred unlit cab stumbled Miss Jones.