There is Miss Quirker, for instance. You don’t know Miss Quirker? How I envy you!
I can best describe her as a lady well over forty (or more), who apparently hasn’t anything at all to do, and who does it thoroughly well. She has a couple of very decided and conspicuous gifts—one is the ability to waste the time and dissipate the amiable qualities of every individual whose path she crosses; and the other is a positive genius for saying the wrong thing.
I was near the window writing for all I was worth, when she knocked at the door and inquired for me, adding, “I see she is busy writing, but if you tell her who it is, I know she’ll see _me_.” Of course I had to see her.
She entered the room with a kittenish little rush and scuffle, that is by no means the happiest form of affectation for a tall, largely-built woman, well over forty (or more).
“Ah! I’ve found you in at last” (with a roguish wag of a stiff finger in a size too small glove). “I was determined to see you, dear, though Abigail always looks so forbidding at the door. I met Miss Virginia shopping just now, and I asked if you were at home. She said you were _frightfully_ busy, nearly off your head with work, as you were leaving town the first thing in the morning. So I said at once: Then of course I must go round and call on her this very afternoon.
“She said she wasn’t sure that you’d be in if I did, but I said I should chance it—it’s such an age since we’ve met—why, not since your engagement was announced! Now, just give me an account of yourself, and tell me all about everything.
“I would have asked Miss Virginia, but I never think she is at all cordial, or perhaps I should say—sympathetic. Indeed, I don’t think she really knew me at first. I was right in her path, yet she seemed to look through me! But I took a seat next to her at the lace counter, and spoke to her. By the way, is she deaf? It was so strange that she didn’t seem to hear a quarter of the questions I asked her about you, so I really got next to _no_ information from her. It was so funny sometimes that I almost laughed—I’ve _such_ a sense of humour, you know. For instance, when I asked her what she thought of your _fiancé_ (you know you’ve never introduced me to him yet!) and was it her idea of a suitable match, and was he tall or short, she replied: ‘I think it wonderful value considering, and it should wear well; the size is five yards round, so I had better have six yards to allow for corners.’ And, do you know, I was some minutes before I realised that she wasn’t talking about his waist measure, but an afternoon tea-cloth for which she was buying the lace. She evidently hadn’t heard a word I had said. And so I raised my voice and asked her what part he had come from, as I knew he didn’t go to _our_ church. She just looked at me and replied: ‘Cluny; I always think Cluny lace washes so well, don’t you?’