"It was green," acknowledged Miss Bird, with a hard smile.
"And you still wore it?"
"Of course I wore it! I had no other."
"But you must have hated wearing it!"
"I did hate wearing it," said Miss Bird; "I loathed the sight of it. I could have torn it to pieces. But it was my only good dress, and so I kept it in constant repair, and cleaned it, and brushed it, and put it away very carefully every Sunday night or after a party. Ah! young girls had a very different time of it forty years ago, I can tell you, my dear!"
Dora gazed at Miss Bird in some surprise. The severe-looking maiden lady seldom spoke so feelingly. Yet, of late, she had talked to Dora a good deal. Dora had given up her situation at the post-office--by Harold Jefferson's express desire--and so was at home all day now. Consequently, she and Miss Bird saw much of each other, and a kind of little friendliness had grown up between them which had never existed previously. In fact, before this cold, wet January set in, Miss Bird had seemed to entertain a feeling of dislike for Dora.
"No," recommended Miss Bird, who probably felt that she had shown a little too much of her human side, "in those days girls didn't gad about on bicycles and scamper after footballs and cricket balls like so many boys. Nor did they go to the theatre alone with young men. No, in my young days I wasn't even allowed to look out of the window at people passing along the pavement. I was fined a shilling if I did. You may not believe that, but it's true! I was brought up very strictly by an aunt in a country village, and I don't suppose anybody on this earth--except a convict in prison, who deserves all he gets, the rascal!--ever passed such a monotonous existence as I did."
"How long did you live with your aunt?" asked Dora, rather timidly.
"Until I was thirty," replied Miss Bird, "and then she died and left me just enough to live on. And I've been living on that just enough ever since."
Miss Bird's customary conversation consisted of harsh comments on current events or severe criticisms of internal affairs at No. 9. She had never been so communicative regarding her past life before.