“Oh dear no! she’s brought nothing, except herself;—and a pretty self she looks. Upon my word, Norah, I wonder that you can’t manage to keep yourself a trifle tidy—say about as tidy as the average charwoman. Especially as you can’t afford to look as if you had got your clothes on inside out. Some girls can; but, I assure you, you’re not one of them.”
Eveleen is one of your dainty bandbox sort of girls. She never wears a pin. All her clothes seem to be part of her. You might live with her for years and never know that she even used hairpins. How she prevents their ever peeping out is beyond my understanding. And as for nets, they are put on so knowingly, and match her hair so exactly, that you would never guess that anything of that kind could have anything to do with the exquisite neatness of her hair.
“We can’t all appear like barbers’ blocks, and look as if our hair were sent home, ready dressed, with the fish every day.”
That was what I observed. We adjourned to the dining-room, and the discussion began. How many of them we have had of which I have been the subject! No one ever seems to grow tired of them—except me.
“Norah,” mamma began, “I must ask you not to be rude. Your natural vulgarity, I suppose, you cannot help; but I will have you keep a guard upon your tongue when you are speaking to your sisters. I cannot understand why Providence ever afflicted me with such a child.”
“I thought, mamma, that that was a problem which you had given up some time ago.”
“Unfortunately, the affliction continues. My other daughters do me credit”—they were all of them beauties;—that was what made it so maddening for me. “I myself am not ill-looking.” (Mamma had been very pretty; and still looked nice, especially at night. Only I wish she would not wear a transformation—which seems to me to be just the same thing as a wig. Considering that Lilian is twenty-nine, and everybody knows it, it is so obvious.) “I therefore cannot understand how it is that I should have a child who is not only unprepossessing, but who cannot be induced to pay any attention to even the most elementary rules of toilet which every gentlewoman observes. A servant would be ashamed to appear in public in the condition in which you at present are.”
Eveleen struck in:
“I should think so! No decent servant looks as if she had covered herself with the contents of the rag-bag. Are you aware, Norah, that your belt has worked up behind, and that the hooks on your skirt are showing?”
“And your shoe-lace is untied; and, unless I am mistaken, your stocking is concertinaed about your ankle;—but she doesn’t mind.”