Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/137

 Even Phyllida had a good word for me—which was so gratifying! I hope you’re all as pleased as we are,” she said, with a funny, unsmiling expression. Almost antagonistic. . . I noticed that she had Hilda’s trick of looking you straight in the eyes—a sort of challenge. . . quite fearless. . . and ready to change in a moment to impudence.

“I am,” I said. “Your uncle Arthur is away and has not been told yet. Will is away too.” “What’s Will doing?,” she asked.

“He was offered a post at Morecambe,” I told her. “Hilda’s father wanted some one of experience and position, who was used to handling men—”

She seemed to find something to smile at in that.

“What does he get?,” she interrupted.

This absorption in pounds, shillings and pence comes to them entirely from their poor mother. ..

“A thousand a year—to start on,” I told her.

“And cheap at the price,” said Phyllida.

I had to beg her to enlighten me.

“Well,” she said, “I don’t call a thousand a year excessive to secure Will—in Morecambe. . .”