Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/196

 right thing to say. As it was he looked at her helplessly.

“I don’t understand, I’m afraid,” said he.

“You never do,” she answered crossly. There was a silence in which she felt the growth of a need to justify herself—to herself as well as to him. “Why, don’t you see,” she urged, “it’s my plain duty to go out and earn something. Why, we’re as poor as ever we can be—I haven’t any pocket-money hardly—I can’t even buy presents for people. I have to make presents out of odds and ends of old things, instead of buying them, like other girls.”

“I think you make awfully pretty things,” he said; “much prettier than any one can buy.”

“You’re thinking of that handkerchief-case I gave Aunt Emma at Christmas. Why, you silly, it was only a bit of one of mother’s old dresses. I do wish you’d talk to mother about it. I might go out as companion or something.”

The word came before the thought, but the thought was brought by the word and the thought stayed.

That very evening Maisie began to lay siege to her mother’s desired consent.