When the girl had disappeared, Mrs. Saltren said confidentially, “We brought the young person to town, and she don’t understand how to friz the hair, and me wanting to wear a fringe. However she could have had the face to offer for my situation as lady’s-maid, passes my understanding. But, Miss, the conceit of the rising generation is surprising. I want to ask Mrs. Welsh to take the creature off my hands in any capacity she likes to name. She might do as parlour-maid, or nurse-girl, or cook, anything but lady’s-maid. I’ve tried to teach her to fold gowns, but folding is like music or painting—you must be born with the gift; it cannot be learnt; and as some have no ear for tune, and others no eye for colour, so have some no natural gift for folding. You can’t make, as they say, a fichu out of a bustle. I had once a red flannel coverlet, and a hole was burnt in it, so I turned it into a petticoat. When the hot weather came I couldn’t bear it, and as the Band of Hope wanted a banner, I did a non-alcoholic motto on it in straw letters, and converted it into a Temperance banner, and very inspiriting it was. It is the same with girls. Some you can adapt to all sorts of purposes, others you can’t.”
When Mrs. Saltren had left the room in quest of her sister-in-law and the baby, Giles said in a tone of discouragement, “I do not know what is to be done. It is inevitable that the news of your being here should reach Orleigh, either through my mother or the girl, probably through both, not perhaps at once, but eventually. Then—what a difficult position Lady Lamerton will be in!”
Arminell looked down on the carpet, and traced the pattern with her foot. Presently she looked up and said, “I see—I never did justice to the merits of humdrum. Even when I was shown my folly and acknowledged my fault, I must needs still play the heroine, and take a bold step, not altogether justifiable, because it landed me in falsehood, and involved others in untruth. But I thought then it was the simplest course for me to follow to escape having to equivocate and even lie. The straight course is always the best. Now I admit that. Short cuts do not always lead where one thinks they will. I wish I had acted with less precipitation and more modesty, had listened to your advice and acted without dissimulation. For myself now I do not care, but I do not see how my mother and other relations can extricate themselves from the dilemma in which I have placed them.”