“Oh, I was!” I said warmly, and then made haste to change the conversation. “What about that hat? I’m quite a good amateur milliner. Look out your oddments and let me see what I can do.”
Chapter Seventeen.
Neighbours—and Real Work.
The fame of me has gone abroad. I have been observed taking the Manners’ infants in and out, and the result has been a simultaneous increase of interest, and—loss of prestige. Number 22, like Mrs Manners, pushes her own “pram,” but there the resemblance ends. She is a healthy, full-blown young woman, smartly—and unsuitably—attired in the very latest fashion of Kensington High Street. She wears large artificial pearls round her neck, and wafts a strong odour of lily of the valley perfume. Never for the fraction of a second did it occur to me to offer to relieve her of any of her duties; but she cast a pale-blue eye at me, and wove her own little schemes. One afternoon, as I was tucking the coverings round Baby Margaret’s feet, she came up to my side, and said in an exceedingly casual manner:—
“Oh, good afternoon. You are Miss Harding? I was just wondering—have you any engagement for the mornings?”
I looked at her calmly, and said I had. Several! Most householders had. She jerked her head, and said impatiently:—
“I didn’t mean that. You take Mrs Manners’ children out, I see. I might be glad of a little help myself. It’s such a bore pram-pushing every day. How much do you charge?”
It is difficult to look haughty through blue spectacles, and while I was trying, it occurred to me that it was a waste of time. It was a plain business question. She did not mean to be insulting, so I smiled instead—rather feebly, I confess—and said:—