Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/335

 "You were married at nineteen."

"Yes, and a lot I got out of it." Mrs. Ashburner was sallow and cynical. "I kept boarders to make a living for my husband, Mary; and since he died I've kept boarders to make a living for Nannie and me."

"But Dick gets good wages."

"Well, he can wait till he saves something."

"Don't make him wait too long."

It was against her better judgment that Mary Barker spoke to her employer about Nannie. "I should want her to help me. She is not expert enough to take your dictation, but she could relieve me of a lot of detail."

"Well, let me have a look at her," Kingdon Knox had said.

So Nannie had come to be looked over, and she had blushed a little and had been rather breathless as she had talked to Mr. Kingdon, and he had been aware of the vividness of her young beauty; for Nannie had red hair that curled over her ears, and her skin was warm ivory, and her eyes were gray.

Her clothes were not quite up to the office standard, but Knox, having hired her, referred the matter to Mary. "You might suggest that she cut out thin waists and high heels," he had said; "you know what I like."

Mary knew, and Nannie's first month's salary 329