One day, to her great distress, Mrs Fortescue, meeting the poor thing on her way out, saw unmistakable signs of recent tears in her face and eyes, and when a kind inquiry was made as to their cause, they burst out again more freely.
“I’m afraid I must give it up,” she sobbed, “and I was so glad to come near home and all. And it’s not easy for me to find pupils, as of course I am not accomplished.”
“But your English teaching is excellent,” said Mrs Fortescue; “it is all I require for the children at present. Please don’t be discouraged.”
Still she sobbed on.
“It’s—it’s not that,” she said, “except that if I were cleverer they—they might respect me. Jasper is as good as gold, but—but the little girls, the young ladies—they do not obey me in the least, and—and—they say things—”
Mrs Fortescue turned and walked down the street with her. It was quiet, and really less likely to be disturbed by passers-by than the small house by incursions of children!
“What sort of things? Tell me more, I beg you, Miss Greenall.”
“That—that I’m not a lady—and I have never pretended to be one in the full sense of the word. Father was only a shop-keeper, and mother is a farmer’s daughter. But still—I don’t think Christabel need speak as she does. And leila dawdles on purpose to vex me sometimes, I do think, and when I found fault to-day—she kept us waiting fully ten minutes—she said of course I couldn’t understand what it was to have no maid—‘of course you,’ she said, ‘have been used to huddling on your clothes anyhow, ever since you were quite a baby almost’—and,” Miss Greenall continued, “I know I am not untidy, though I dress plainly. Mother brought us up to be very neat.”
Mrs Fortescue sighed deeply.
“My dear Miss Greenall,” she said, “your mother brought you up much better than I seem to have brought up my daughters. I am unspeakably ashamed of them, and I beg you to accept my apology. And they shall apologise to you to-morrow morning.”