‘The public-house, Miss Grey?’
The little lady had tears in her eyes. ‘I am not in favour of the public-house, God knows—but I am not so sure that your meetings will do away with that. It’s just as likely to make them thirsty coming out at nine, after you’ve sung to them and fiddled to them, and seeing the red light in the window that looks so cheerful to them. But never mind me—Florry and Emmy will sing, and the London young ladies in the new villa will play the piano, and you can get a quartette of fiddles, you know, quite easily from Winwich. And Jim—Jim might recite; he used to be very good at it.’
‘Oh—Mr. Plowden!’ said the curate, with a slight hesitation.
‘Jim I mean: he used to read very well when he was a boy.’
‘I asked Lady William,’ Mr. Osborne said hurriedly, as if to change the subject, ‘but she said like you, Miss Grey, that she neither sang nor—I am not aware I suggested that any one should dance.’
‘They would like that! but the thing is not so much what they would like to see, but what all the ladies and gentlemen would like to do. And by-the-bye there is that dark-eyed woman at the school—whom I have a strong feeling I have seen before—and who looks no more like a schoolmistress than—any one does. I feel quite sure she could act or recite or something—or perhaps sing. I would ask her if I were you.’
‘I am unfortunate in not being of your opinion, Miss Grey; I should not think of asking that person to help in any case.’
‘Oh, you’re too particular,’ Miss Grey said.
And then Florence got up to go.
‘The old Lloyds,’ she said, ‘want to have a week of their pension in advance—may I say you will give it to them, Miss Grey?’