Hilda Lessways (Romance Classic). Arnold Bennett

too, was enchanted at her reception.

      “Florrie gone to bed? I should just think Florrie has gone to bed. Half-past ten and after! Eh my! This going out after tea. I never heard of such doings. Now do warm your feet.”

      “I should have been home sooner, only something happened,” said Hilda.

      “Oh!” Mrs. Lessways exclaimed indifferently. She had in fact no curiosity as to the affairs of Dayson and Company. The sole thing that interested her was Hilda’s daily absence and daily return. She seemed quite content to remain in ignorance of what Hilda did in the mysterious office. Her conversation, profuse when she was in good spirits, rarely went beyond the trifling separate events of existence personal and domestic—the life of the house hour by hour and minute by minute. It was often astounding to Hilda that her mother never showed any sign of being weary of these topics, nor any desire to discover other topics.

      “Yes,” said Hilda. “Miss Gailey—”

      Mrs. Lessways became instantly a different creature.

      “And does he know?” she asked blankly, when Hilda had informed her of Janet’s visit and news.

      “Yes. I told him—of course.”

      “You?”

      “Well, somebody had to tell him,” said Hilda, with an affectation of carelessness. “So I told him myself.”

      “And how did he take it?”

      “Well, how should he take it?” Hilda retorted largely. “He had to take it! He was much obliged, and he said so.”

      Mrs. Lessways began to weep.

      “What ever’s the matter?”

      “I was only thinking of poor Sarah!” Mrs. Lessways answered the implied rebuke of Hilda’s brusque question. “I shall go and see her tomorrow morning.”

      “But, mother, don’t you think you’d better wait?”

      Mrs. Lessways spoke up resolutely: “I shall go and see Sarah Gailey tomorrow morning, and let that be understood! I don’t need my daughter to teach me when I ought to go and see my friends and when I oughtn’t.... I knew Sarah Gailey before your Mr. Cannon was born.”

      “Oh, very well! Very well!” Hilda soothed her lightly.

      “I shall tell Sarah Gailey she’s got to reckon with me, whether she wants to or not! That’s what I shall tell Sarah Gailey!” Mrs. Lessways wiped her eyes.

      “Mother,” Hilda asked, when they had gone upstairs, “did you wind the clock?”

      “I don’t think I did,” answered the culprit uncertainly from her bedroom door.

      “Mother, how tiresome you are! Night before last you wouldn’t let me touch it. You said you preferred to do it yourself. And now I shall be waiting for it to strike tomorrow morning, to get up—lend me that candle, do!”

      She tripped down to the lobby gladly, and opened the big door of the clock, and put her hand into the dark cavity and, grimacing, hauled up the heavy weights. This forgetfulness of her mother’s somehow increased her extraordinary satisfaction with life. She remounted the shadowy stairs on the wings of a pure and ingenuous elation.