"What have you been doing to yourself, Maggie?" he said brusquely.
Maggie looked frightened. "Nothing," she said.
"Working your fingers to the bone?"
She shook her head. "I was no good at dressmaking. They wouldn't have me."
"Well—" he said kindly.
"There are a great many things I can do. I can make wreaths and crosses and bookays. I made them at Evans's. I could go back there. Mr. Evans would have me. But Mrs. Evans wouldn't." She paused, surveying her immense resources. "Or I could do the flowers for people's parties. I used to. Do you think—perhaps—they'd have me?"
Maggie's pitiful doubt was always whether "they" would "have" her.
"Yes," he said, smiling at her pathos, "perhaps they would."
"Or I could do embroidery. I learned, years ago, at Madame Ponting's. I could go back. Only Madame wouldn't have me." (Maggie was palpably foolish; but her folly was adorable.)
"Why wouldn't she have you?"