"Mrs. Arkell meant to send for you, and told William to go; I heard her. He forgot it; and then it grew too late."
Mildred did not raise her eyes from her work. She was hemming a shirt-frill of curiously fine cambric—Mr. Arkell, behind the taste of his day, wore shirt-frills still. Mrs. Arkell rarely did any plain sewing herself; what her maid-servants did not do, was consigned to Mildred.
"Do you like work?" inquired Miss Charlotte, watching her nimble fingers, and quitting abruptly the former subject.
"Very much indeed."
Charlotte shrugged her shoulders with a spice of contempt. "I hate it; I once tried to make a tray-cloth, but it came out a bag; and mamma never gave me anything more."
"Who did the sewing at your house?"
"Betsey, of course. Mamma also used to do some, and groan over it like anything. I think ladies never ought——"
What Charlotte Travice was about to say ladies ought not to do was interrupted by the entrance of William. He had not been indoors since the early dinner, and looked pleased to see Mildred, who had come by invitation to spend a long afternoon.
"Which of you will go out with me?" he asked, somewhat abruptly; and his mother came into the room as he was speaking.
"Out where?" she asked.