Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/205

206 they, though your hands do get so grubby? At any rate, there aren't any thorns."

"I'd rather be wounded than be grubby," said Jane.

"Oh, don't be symbolic and Maeterlincky," said Lucilla.

"I wasn't," said Jane.

There was something to occupy minds and tongues and fingers when the answers to the advertisements began to come in.

Mrs. Adela Dadd—they had themselves chosen her from among a crowd of applicants; how, after this, could they rely on their own judgment?

Jane put it to Mrs. Doveton. "We don't really know anything about choosing people to work for us," she said, sitting on the kitchen table and watching Mrs. Doveton shredding black currants daintily with a silver fork. "Of course, I mean out of the people we can choose from. We wanted to choose you, Mrs. Doveton dear, but you wouldn't be chosen. It wasn't till we were in the depths of a dreadful scrape that you came and dug us out, like the angel you are."

"You do talk so," said Mrs. Doveton. "What is it you want now?"

"Well," said Jane, "we want two things, and they haven't anything to do with each other."

"I don't know that I wouldn't rather you put off making cocoanut-ice again till I get these currants out of the way—if it's that," said Mrs. Doveton. "That" was one of the sweet busy-nesses that had ruffled the surface of the perfect calm.

"It isn't cocoanut ice," Jane assured her; "it's much more serious."

"It's not to ask me to stay on permanent, I do hope and trust," said Mrs. Doveton, "because"

"No, no," said Jane. "I should never dare to ask you that again, ever. But I do wish you'd see all these people for me." She waved a sheaf of letters. "You've had experience; you know what sort of questions to ask them;