“Well, you see, I pay a woman to come and wash the shoemaker’s children on Saturday evenings.”

I smiled.  “That can’t cost much, unless she provides the soap.”

Pauline got pinker still.  “Well, I pay for the village nurse, and a few other little things.  Then there’s a little baby,” she dropped her voice, “who has no mother —­ she died —­ and who never had a father, and every one doesn’t care for those sort of babies.  —­ You do like my coat and skirt, don’t you?”

Chapter IX

I think, by the way, that it was on that very day that Mr. Dudley met Pauline.  She, of course, would know the exact date and hour, but I am almost sure of it, for although it may mean a day of less ecstatic joy to me than it does to her, it brought much peace and subsequent happiness into my life, and therefore is writ in red letters in my book of days.  For the visits of Dick Dudley had latterly become more frequent than I cared for, and much as I liked him, I began to wish that I had remained in his estimation under the shadow of Diana’s charming personality, for so he had tolerated me until the fateful day on which I had partaken of Betty’s gray wad.  That act of professional valor ignited a spark of feeling for me in his breast, which, fostered by Hugh’s constant suggestion, sprang into something warmer than I could have wished, and was fanned into flame on the day on which he found me paying a visit of consolation to the small fat Thomas.  Now, strangely enough, that small fat person was nephew to Dick Dudley.  How small the world is!  And the mother turned out to have been exactly the sort of mother I had thought she must be.  One of the nicest things about Dick Dudley was the way he spoke of that sister) and we had long talks about her, until I awoke to the fact that that sister and I must have been twins, so alike were we; then I began to be afraid.  For I couldn’t tell him that there was some one far away, for whom I was waiting from day to day.  One can hardly barricade one’s self behind such an announcement.  The classification of women is incomplete.  There are those who are engaged and who care; there are those who are engaged and who don’t care; there are those who don’t care and, who are not engaged; then there are those who care and who are not engaged, so cannot say.  It is not their fault if, sometimes, they wound a passing lover.  Mercifully there are Pauline’s in this world to relieve one of unsought affections, and I liked Dick Dudley well enough, and not too much to be glad when I saw him give ever such a small start when he walked into my drawing-room and saw Pauline sitting there, clothed in cool green linen and looking her very best.  I had done her glorious hair on the top —­ that, I think is the expression —­ and she sat in the window so that her hair shone like burnished gold, and she was saying in a voice fraught with emotion, “If I had my