Mrs. Palmer frowned heavily at her as Elsie came back into the room. "It's ever so long since we've seen you, as I was just saying," she remarked in a loud and artificial voice, making Elsie wish that she had waited outside the door and listened. She thought that they must have been talking about her.
After tea was over, they did talk about her. Mrs. Palmer began : " You can let Geraldine take the tea-things, Elsie. It won't be the first time, lately, she's done your share of helping your poor mother as well as her own."
"I'm sorry to hear that," from Aunt Gertie.
"Geraldine's health isn't as strong as yours, either. She looks to me as though she might go into consumption, if you want to know," said Aunt Ada.
They looked at Elsie, and she looked sulkily back at them.
It was one of the days on which she was at her plainest. Her face looked fat and heavy, the high cheekbones actually seemed to be pushing her lower lids upwards until her eyes appeared as mere slits. Her mouth was closed sullenly.
"Elsie's not been a good gurl lately, and she knows it very well. Her own mother doesn't seem to have any influence with her, so perhaps . . ." said Mrs. Palmer to her sisters, but looking at her child, "perhaps you'll see what you can do. It's not a thing I like to talk about, ever, but we know very well what happens to a gurl who spends her time larking about the streets with fellows. To think that a child of mine—"
"What do you do it for, Elsie?" enquired Aunt Gertie, in a practical tone, as though only such shrewdness as hers could have seized at once upon this vital point.
"Do what?"
"What your poor mother says."
"She hasn't said anything, yet."
"Don't prevaricate with me, you bad gurl, you," said Mrs. Palmer sharply. "You know very well what I mean, and so do others. The tales that get carried to me about your goings-on! First one fellow, and then another, and even running after a whipper-snapper that's already going with another gurl!"
"This is a bit of Ireen's work, I suppose," said Elsie. "I can't help it if her boy's sick of her already, can I? I'm sure I don't care anything about Arthur Osborne, or any of them, for that matter."
The implication that Elsie Palmer, at sixteen and a half, could afford to distinguish between her admirers, obscurely infuriated the spinster Aunt Ada.
She began to tremble with wrath, and white dents appeared at the comers of her mouth and nostrils. "You're not the first gurl whose talked that way, and ended by disgracing herself and her family," she cried shrilly. "If I were your mother, I'd give you a sound whipping, I declare to goodness I would."
Elsie shot a vicious look at her aunt out of the corners of her slanting eyes. "Are the grapes sour, Aunt Ada?" she asked insolently.
Aunt Ada turned white. "D'you hear that, Edie?" she gasped.
"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Palmer vigorously, "and I'm not going to put up with it, not for a single instant. Elsie Palmer, you beg your auntie's pardon directly minute."
"I won't."
The vast figure of Mrs. Palmer in her Sunday black frock upreared itself and stood, weighty and menacing, over her child. She had never hit either of her daughters since childhood, but neither of them had ever openly defied her.
"Do as I say."
"N-no."
Elsie's voice quavered, and she burst into tears. Mrs. Palmer let out a sigh of relief. She knew that she had won.
"Do—as—I—say."
"I'm sure I'm very sorry, Aunt Ada, if I said what I didn't ought."
"It isn't what you said, dear," said Aunt Ada untruthfully. "It was the way you said it."
There was a silence.
Then Mrs. Palmer pursued her advantage. "You may as well understand, Elsie, that this isn't going on. I haven't got the time, nor yet the strength, to go chasing after you all day long. I know well enough you're not to be trusted —out of the house the minute my back's the other way— and coming in at all hours, and always a tale of some sort to account for where you've been. So, my lady, you've got to make up your mind to a different state of things. What's it to be : a job as a typewriter, or apprenticed to the millinery? Your kind Aunt Gertie's got a friend in the business, and she's offered to speak for you."
"I'd rather the typing," said Elsie sullenly.
"Then you'll come with me and see about a post tomorrow morning as ever is," said Mrs. Palmer. "It's your own doing. You could have stayed at home like a lady, helping Mother and Geraldine, if you'd cared to. But I'm not going to have any gurl of mine getting herself a name the way you've been doing."
"I suppose I can go now?"
"You can go if you want to," said Mrs. Palmer, flushed with victory. "And mind and remember what I've said, for I mean ever^'' word of it."
It was only too evident that she did, and Elsie went out of the room crying angrily. She did not really mind the idea of becoming a typist in an office or a shop in the very least, but she hated having been humiliated in front of her aunts and Geraldine.
As she went upstairs, sobbing, she met Mrs. Williams coming down She was a gentle, unhealthy-looking woman of about thirty, so thin that her clothes always looked as though they might drop off her bending, angular body.
"What's the matter, dear?"
"It's nothing."
"Come into the sitting-room, won't you, and rest a minute?"
"Well, I don't mind."
Elsie reflected that there would probably be a fire in the sitting-room, and in her own room it was cold, and she knew that the bed was still unmade.
She followed Mrs. Williams into the sitting-room, where Mr. Williams sat reading a Sunday illustrated paper.
"Horace, this poor child is quite upset. Give her a seat, dear."
"It's all right," said Elsie, confused.
She had only seen Mr. Williams half a dozen times. He always breakfasted and went out early, and Elsie, of late, had eaten her supper in the kitchen. They had met at mealtimes on Sundays, but she had never spoken to him, and thought him elderly and uninteresting.
Mr. Williams was indeed forty-three years old, desiccated and inclined to baldness, a small, rather paimchy man.
His little, hard grey eyes gleamed on Elsie now from behind his pince-nez.
"No bad news, I hope?" His voice was dry, and rather formal, with great precision of utterance.
His wife put her emaciated hand on the girl's shoulder. "Two heads are better than one, as they say. Horace and I would be glad to help you, if we can."
"It is silly to be upset, like," said Elsie, sniffing. "Mother and I had a few words, that's all, and I'm to get hold of a job. I'm sure I don't know why I'm crying. I shall be glad enough to get out of this place for a bit."
"Hush, dear! That isn't a nice way to speak of your home, now is it? But about this job, now. Horace and I might be able to help you there,"
She hesitated and looked at her husband. "What about the Woolleys, dear?"
"Yes—ye-es."
"These are some new acquaintances of ours, and they've a lovely house at Hampstead, but Mrs. Woolley isn't any too strong, and I know she's looking out for someone to help her with the children and all. It wouldn't be going to service—nothing at all like that, of course; I know you wouldn't think of that, dear—but just be one of the family at this lovely house of theirs."
"It isn't in the country, is it?" Elsie asked suspiciously.
"Oh no, dear, Hampstead I said. Only three-quarters of an hour by 'bus from town. Don't you like the