Sir George Tressady — Volume I

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

This however, alas! was not enough for Mrs. Hawkins, who was full of ambitions, which had a bad manner, a plague of shyness, and a narrow income, were perpetually thwarting. As soon as the ten minutes were over, and Mrs. Watton, who was nothing if not political, and saw no occasion to make a stranger of the vicar's wife, had plunged into the evening papers brought her by the footman, Mrs. Hawkins threw herself on Letty Sewell. She was effusively grateful—too grateful—for the patterns lent her by Miss Sewell's maid.

"Did she lend you some patterns?" said Letty, raising her brows. "Dear me; I didn't know."

And her eyes ran cooly over Mrs. Hawkins's attire, which did, indeed, present a village imitation of the delicate gown in which Miss Sewell had robed herself for the evening.

Mrs. Hawkins coloured.

"I specially told my nurse," she said hastily, "that of course your leave must be asked. But my nurse and your maid seem to have made friends. Of course my nurse has plenty of time for dressmaking with only one child of four to look after, and—and—one really gets no new ideas in a poky place like this. But I would not have taken a liberty for the world."

Her pride and mauvaise honte together made both voice and manner particularly unattractive. Letty was seized with the same temper that little boys show towards flies.

"Of course I am delighted!" she said indifferently. "It's so nice and good to have one's things made at home. Your nurse must be a treasure."

All the time her gaze was diligently inspecting every ill-cut seam and tortured trimming of the homemade triumph before her. The ear of the vicar's wife, always morbidly sensitive in that particular drawing-room, caught a tone of insult in every light word. A passionate resentment flamed up in her, and she determined to hold her own.

"Are you going in for more visits when you leave here?" she inquired.

"Yes, two or three," said Letty, turning her delicate head unwittingly. She had been throwing blandishments to Mrs. Watton's dog, a grey Aberdeen terrier, who stood on the rug quietly regarding her.