“Why should you stand?” says Cicely. “These seats are free to all.”
“Thanks, miss, but I know my duty.” Then she adds, insinuatingly, “If you should be wanting a laundress, ma’am, you’d be doin’ a charity to remember me—Eliza Brown, o’ 20, Little Double Street, back o’ Portman Square; no acids used, miss, and no machine-work.”
Cicely looks at her, and with some hesitation asks:
“Are you—are you—the mother of a young person called Annie Brown? She has just gone past here with some primroses.”
“Yes, miss, I be.”
“Of Mr. Bertram’s heroine!” adds Lady Jane, with a laugh.
“Please ’m, don’t call her names, ma’am,” says Annie’s mother, quickly. “She’s a good girl, though I say it as shouldn’t say it, and there’s nought to laugh at, unless it be the gentleman’s rubbish.”
“You don’t seem to be grateful for the compliment he pays to your family,” says Lady Jane, much amused.
“Compliment is it, my lady? The gentleman’s a crank, that’s what he is; he won’t never marry her, and there’s a good young man round the corner as is left out in the cold. He’s in the greengrocery line, and hev got a good bit o’ money put by, and the match ’ud be suitable in every way, for my daughter’s a good judge o’ green stuff.”
“Mrs. Brown,” says Cicely, “I should like to have the pleasure of knowing your daughter. Will you bring her to see me? I am staying with Mr. Bertram’s aunt, Lady Southwold.”