IT was six months later, and about as broiling a Sunday afternoon as
London can produce. Virginia and I were reading in the coolest spot in
the garden, when Abigail came out and announced, with slight acidity,
“That young person wants to know if she can see you, madam. I told her
you were engaged, but she said she would wait.”
“What is her name?” I queried; there are so many young persons in the
world.
“That Eileen!” she answered, this time with a definite sniff.
“She can come out here,” I said, and forthwith there sailed across the
lawn a vision such as never before had graced my garden.
Eileen was wearing a white Jap silk skirt; a transparent rose pink
blouse, that revealed the satin ribbon and lace camisole beneath; pink
cotton open-work stockings; white shoes; one of those long stoles made
of metallic-looking, lustre-brown fur, so beloved of the laundry girl;
a big white hat, trimmed with the most violent of tangerine-coloured
velvet, said velvet hanging in festoons down the back, and loops of
it caught round the front and fastened to the fur stole—on one side
with a large would-be-diamond lizard, about four inches long, and on
the other with a crescent of similar make. Her hair, which was done in
a wild imitation of the latest eccentricity of fashion, was radiant
with more crescents and a sparkling three-tiered back comb. A string of
large pearls adorned her neck.
To say I was taken aback at the sight, is to put it mildly; I was
fairly dumb with astonishment. Where in the world had that demure,
mouse-like orphan been to pick up such ideas! Even though I knew she
had gone to work in a munition factory, I wasn’t prepared for such
developments. She soon enlightened us.
After mutual polite inquiries about each other’s health, and a few more
relative to the grandmother, she folded her hands in her lap, sat as
though posing for a photograph, and then said: “And please, how do you
think I look?”
“You are certainly very bright,” I stammered, striving valiantly after
truth.
“Yes, I look very nice, don’t I?” she went on; “and I felt I ought
to come round and show you, because, as I tell everybody, it’s all
entirely due to _you_, ma’am, that I’m so stylish. I shouldn’t never
have _thought_ to dress like this, if you hadn’t taught me how. And now
I’m going round to show myself to Mrs. Griggles.”