By ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.
CHAPTER VI.
AN EXPERIENCE.
Florence Brand presented herself at her sister’s house on the following morning, to take her to a large registry office, “You’ll see plenty of girls there,” she said. “You must be prepared to wait a while if you are told that a suitable article is not then on the premises.”
“I suppose I shall get home before my half-past-one dinner-hour?” said Lucy.
“It is not in the power of woman to prophesy when you will get home,” Florence answered. “But surely,” she cried, as her little nephew came in equipped for a walk, “you do not dream of taking Hugh with us?”
“Certainly I do!” answered Lucy. “It may not be much of a pleasure for him; but he is good and patient. Indeed, there is nothing else to be done.”
“Cannot you leave him with your charwoman?” asked Florence. “Don’t you think she is respectable?”
“Hugh,” said his mother, “run upstairs and find my gloves in my bedroom. Yes,” she replied to her sister as the child ran off, “Mrs. Sim is perfectly respectable as a charwoman. But I know nothing of her as regards children. She might think it kind to indulge Hugh with lumps of sugar, or by telling him stories of ghosts or murders.”
“Well,” said Florence, “you think I am hard on the lower orders; but I’m sure I’d leave my youngsters in their charge for a few hours—in one’s own house too, where there can be nothing dirty or infectious. I don’t know much more of the nurses I hire than you do of your Mrs. Sim.”