e had
certainly heard nothing of her young mistress since the door-bang which
had signalled her departure for the office. In the delusion that she was
utterly solitary in the house, Florrie was whistling, not at all like a
modest young woman, but like a carter. Hilda knew that she could
whistle, and had several times indicated to her indirectly that
whistling was undesirable; but she had never heard her whistling as she
whistled now. Her first impulse was to rush out of the bedroom and
'catch' Florrie and make her look foolish, but a sense of honour
restrained her from a triumph so mean, and she kept perfectly still. She
heard Florrie run into her mother's bedroom; and then she heard that
voice, usually so timid, saying loudly, exultantly, and even coarsely:
"Oh! How beautiful I am! How beautiful I am! Shan't I just mash the men!
Shan't I just mash 'em!" This new and vulgar word 'mash' offended Hilda.

II

She crept noiselessly to the door, which was ajar, and looked forth like
a thief. The door of her mother's room was wide open, and across the
landing she could see Florrie posturing in front of the large mirror of
the wardrobe. The sight shocked her in a most peculiar manner. It was
Florrie's afternoon out, and the child was wearing, for the first time,
an old brown skirt that Hilda had abandoned to her. But in this long
skirt she was no more a child. Although scarcely yet fifteen years old,
she was a grown woman. She had astoundingly developed during her service
with Mrs. Lessways. She was scarcely less tall than Hilda, and she
possessed a sturdy, rounded figure which put Hilda's to shame. It was
uncanny--the precocity of the children of the poor! It was disturbing!
On a chair lay Florrie's new 'serviceable' cloak, and a cheap but sound
bonnet: both articles the fruit of a special journey with her aunt to
Baines's drapery shop at Bursley, where there was a small special sober
department for servants who were wise enough not to yield to the
temptation of 'finery.' Florrie, who at thirteen and a half had never
been able to rattle one penny against another, had since then earned
some two thousand five hundred pennies, and had clothed herself and put
money aside and also poured a shower of silver upon her clamorous
family. Amazing feat! Amazing growth! She seized the 'good' warm cloak
and hid her poor old bodice beneath it, and drew out her thick pig-tail,
and shook it into position with a free gesture of the head; an