Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/54

40 will be looked at. To that end are her eyebrows and lashes black as jet, her undulated hair crimson, her lips a brighter shade of the same colour, and her skin of magnolia pallor, like the heroines of the novels which are sure to be her favourites. Once, she must have been handsome, a hollyhock queen of a kitchen-garden kingdom; but she would be far more attractive now if only she had "abdicated," as nice middle-aged women say in France.

Her dress was the very latest dream of a neurotic Parisian modiste, and would have been seductive on a slender girl. On her—well, at least she would have her wish in it—she would not pass unnoticed!

She looked surprised at sight of me, and I saw she did n't realize that I was the expected candidate.

"Lady Kilmarny could n't come," I began to explain, "and ⸺"

"Oh!" she cut me short. "So you are the young person she is recommending as a maid."

I corrected Miss Paget when she called me a "young woman," but times have changed since then, and in future I must humbly consent to be a young person, or even a creature.

For a minute I forgot, and almost sat down. It would have been the end of me if I had! Luckily I remembered What I was, and stood before my mistress, trying to look like Patience on a monument with butter in her mouth which must n't be allowed to melt.

"What is your name?" began the catechism (and the word was "nime," according to Lady Turnour).

"N or M," nearly slipped out of my mouth, but I