Mrs. Waugh said, "I see you've got Blenkiron in again?"
"Well, he's left his ladder in the yard. I suppose that means he'll mend the kitchen chimney some time before winter."
"The Yorkshire workmen are very independent," Mrs. Waugh said.
"They scamp their work like the rest. You'd need a resident carpenter, and a resident glazier, and a resident plumber—"
"Yes, Caroline, you would indeed."
Gentle voices saying things you had heard before in the drawing-room at
Five Elms.
Miss Frewin had opened a black silk bag that hung on her arm, and taken out a minute pair of scissors and a long strip of white stuff with a stitched pattern on it. She nicked out the pattern into little holes outlined by the stitches. Mary watched her, fascinated by the delicate movements of the thin fingers and the slanted, drooping postures of the head.
"Do you like doing it?"
"Yes."
She thought: "What a fool she must think me. As if she'd do it if she didn't like it."