Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/77

 where they turned out the best work of that kind that was to be found in London.

'A bookbindery? Laws!' said Miss Henning. 'Do you mean they get them up for the shops? Well, I always thought he would have something to do with books.' Then she added, 'But I didn't think he would ever follow a trade.'

'A trade?' cried Miss Pynsent. 'You should hear Mr. Robinson speak of it. He considers it one of the fine arts.'

Millicent smiled, as if she knew how people often considered things, and remarked that very likely it was tidy, comfortable work, but she couldn't believe there was much to be seen in it. 'Perhaps you will say there is more than there is here,' she went on, finding at last an effect of irritation, of reprehension, an implication of aggressive respectability, in the image of the patient dressmaker, sitting for so many years in her close, brown little den, with the foggy familiarities of Lomax Place on the other side of the pane. Millicent liked to think that she herself was strong, and she was not strong enough for that.

This allusion to her shrunken industry seemed to Miss Pynsent very cruel; but she reflected that it was natural one should be insulted if one talked to a vulgar girl. She judged this young lady in the manner of a person who was not vulgar herself, and if there was a difference between them she was right in feeling it to be in her favour. Miss Pynsent's 'cut,' as I have intimated, was not truly fashionable, and in the application of gimp and the distribution of ornament she was not to be trusted; but, morally, she had the best taste in the world. 'I haven't so much work as