“Mrs. Bray, the servant said.”
“No, Mrs. Gray.”
“I understood her to say Mrs. Bray.”
“I can't help what you understood.” The mother spoke with some asperity of manner. “She calls herself Gray, but you can have it anything you please; it won't change her identity.”
“What did she want?”
“To see me.”
“I know.” Edith was turning away with an expression on her face that Mrs. Dinneford did not like, so she said,
“She is in trouble, and wants me to help her, if you must know. She used to be a dressmaker, and worked for me before you were born; she got married, and then her troubles began. Now she is a widow with a house full of little children, and not half bread enough to feed them. I've helped her a number of times already, but I'm getting tired of it; she must look somewhere else, and I told her so.”
Edith turned from her mother with an unsatisfied manner, and went up stairs. Mrs. Dinneford was surprised, not long afterward, to meet her at her chamber door, dressed to go out. This was something unusual.
“Where are you going?” she asked, not concealing her surprise.