Flaming June | Page 6

to me,
she must conform to the regulations of the household. At my age I
cannot be expected to alter my ways for the sake of a girl."
"Certainly not. She is a mere girl, I suppose! How old may she be?"
Miss Briskett considered.
"She was born in the winter! I distinctly remember coming in and
seeing the cable, and taking off my fur gloves to open it.--It was the
year I bought the dining-room carpet. It was just down, I remember,
and as we drank the baby's health, the cork flew out of the bottle, and
some of the champagne was spilt, and there was a great fuss wiping it
up-- Twenty-two years ago! Who would have thought it could be so
long?"
"Ah, it always pays to get a good thing while you are about it. It costs a
great deal at the start, but you have such satisfaction afterwards. It's not
a bit faded!" Mrs Ramsden affirmed, alluding, be it understood, to the
Turkey carpet, and not to Miss Cornelia Briskett. "Twenty-two. Just a
year younger than my Elma! Elma will be glad to have a companion."
"It is kind of you to say so. Nothing would please me better than to see
Cornelia become intimate with your daughter. Poor child, she has not

had the advantages of an English upbringing; but we must hope that
this visit will be productive of much good. She could not have a better
example than Elma. She is a type of a sweet, guileless, English girl."
"Ye-es!" asserted the sweet girl's mother, doubtfully; "but you know,
dear Miss Briskett, that at times even Elma..." She shook her head,
sighed, and continued with a struggling smile: "We must
remember--must we not--that we have been young ourselves, and try
not to be too hard on little eccentricities!"
Mrs Ramsden spoke with feeling, for memory, though slumbering, was
not dead. She had not always been a well-conducted widow lady, who
expressed herself with decorum, and wore black cashmere and bugles.
Thirty odd years ago she had been a plump little girl, with a lively
capacity for mischief.
On one occasion she had danced two-thirds of the programme at a ball
with an officer even more dashing than the objectionable nephew of
Mrs Mott, and in a corner of the conservatory had given him a flower
from her bouquet. He had kissed the flower before pressing it in his
pocket- book, and had looked as if he would have liked to kiss
something else into the bargain. ... After twenty-five years of life at
Norton, it was astonishing how vividly the prim little widow recalled
the guilty thrill of that moment! On yet another occasion she had
carried on a clandestine correspondence with the brother of a friend,
and had awakened to tardy pangs of conscience only when a more
attractive suitor came upon the scene!
Mrs Ramsden blushed at the remembrance, and felt a kindly softening
of the heart towards the absent Cornelia but Miss Briskett remained
coldly unmoved. She had been an old maid in her cradle, and had gone
on steadily growing old maidier ever since. Never had she so forgotten
herself as to dally with the affections of any young man, which was
perhaps the less to her credit, as no young man had exhibited any
inclination to tempt her from the paths of single blessedness.
She looked down her nose at her friend's remark, and replied that she
trusted she might be enabled to do her duty, without either prejudice or

indulgence, and soon afterwards Mrs Ramsden took her leave, and
returned to her own domain.
At one of the windows of the over-furnished sitting-room of The Holt,
a girl was standing gazing dreamily through the spotted net curtains,
with a weary little droop in the lines of the figure which bespoke
fatigue, rather mental, than physical. She was badly dressed, in an
ill-cut skirt, and an ill-cut blouse, and masses of light brown hair were
twisted heavily together at the back of her head; but the face, which she
turned to welcome her mother reminded one instinctively of a bunch of
flowers--of white, smooth-leaved narcissi; of fragrant pink roses; of
pansies--deep, purple-blue pansies, soft as velvet. Given the right
circumstances and accessories, this might have been a beauty, an
historical beauty, whose name would be handed down from one
generation to another; a Georgina of Devonshire, a beautiful Miss
Gunning, a witching Nell Gwynne; but alas! beauty is by no means
independent of external aid! The poets who declaim to the contrary are
men, poor things, who know no better; every woman in the world will
plump for a good dressmaker, when she wishes to appear at her best.
Elma Ramsden, with the makings of a beauty, was just