“What’s become of your voice?”
“Mislaid it somewhere,” said his young sister lightly. “Can’t think for the life of me where I put it last.”
“This work’s beginning to affect your chest,” said Erb.
“Funny thing,” remarked Louisa, with great good temper, halfway up the wooden stairs of the workshop, “but my medical man ordered me carriage exercise. Shan’t be two ticks.”
When Louisa returned, stabbing her hat in one or two places before gaining what seemed to be a satisfactory hold, she was accompanied by giggling young women who had been sent by the rest as a commission to ascertain whether it was Louisa’s own brother or some other girl’s brother who had called for her; Louisa’s own statement appearing too absurd to have any relationship to truth. Moreover, presuming it were Louisa’s young man who had called for her, it was something of a breach of etiquette, as understood by the girls of the workshop, for one young couple to go out alone, the minimum number for such an expedition being four, in which case they talked not so much to their immediate companion as to the other half of the square party, with whom they communicated by shouting. Having ascertained, to their surprise, that Louisa had spoken the exact and literal truth, they saw the brother and sister off from the doorway, warning Louisa to wrap up her neck, and begging Erb to smile and think of something pleasant.
“Never mind their chaff,” said Louisa, in her deep whisper. “I’d a jolly sight rather be going out a bit of an excursion with you than I would with—well, you know.”
“Wish you hadn’t lost your voice,” said Erb, with concern. “I don’t like the sound of it, at all.”
“There’s some girls in our place never get it back, and after about four or five years of it—Don’t cross over here.”
“Why not?”
“He makes my ’ead ache,” said Louisa promptly. “I’ve only been going out with him for a fortnight, and I know all what he’s going to say as though I’d read it in a printed book. He talks about the weather first, then about his aunt’s rheumatics, then about the day he had at Brighton when he was a kid, then about where he thinks of spendin’ his ’oliday next year, then about how much his ’oliday cost him last year—” A mild gust of wind came and struck Louisa on the mouth; she stopped to cough, holding her hand the while flat on her blouse.