Have you noticed, dear reader, how frequent it is to set down those who are too sharp for you as “queer?” Well, it was just so at Northampton Park, and what the girl didn’t choose to put into plain words, she stigmatized as queer.
“And what do you mean by queer?” the mother asked.
“Well, they are queer. I think their mother must be queer, too, because their dress is so funny.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, awfully. They always wear brown.”
“What are they like?”
“Well, Maudie is fairish and Julia is darkish. Maudie has quite a straight nose and Julia’s turns up—oh, it isn’t an ugly turn-up nose, I didn’t mean that. But they are such guys, and what is worse, they don’t care a bit.”
“Really? What sort of guys?” asked the mother, who was immensely amused.
“Well, they never have anything like anybody else. They’ve got long, pokey frocks made of tough brown stuff, like—er—like—er—pictures of Dutch children. And over them they wear long holland pinafores.”
“It sounds very sensible,” remarked the mother. “And when they come out of school?”