Miss Merivales Mistake | Page 8

summers before with her hair flying, was considerably
taken aback by her extremely "grown-up" manner. She sat meekly
down on the sofa and waited for the letter to be finished.
"There, it's done!" Clare exclaimed, after a moment or two. "Now I will
just give it to Mrs. Richards, and we can have a little talk. Pauline will
be back in half an hour," She glanced as she spoke at a tiny clock on
the writing-table. "Then after lunch I must rush off to Southwark. I
shall find a big mothers' meeting waiting for me. The women bring
their needlework, and I talk to them. Last week we considered Food
Stuffs in reference to young children, and this afternoon I am going to
discuss Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education."
"Dear me! these sound very difficult subjects for you, my dear," said
Miss Merivale, trying to repress a laugh as she looked at Clare's serious
young face. "They must need a great deal of preparation."
"Yes, that is the worst of it. I haven't time for any study. We workers
lead very busy lives, Miss Merivale. I am rushing all day from one
thing to another, feeling all the time that I ought to be doing something
else."
It suggested itself to Miss Merivale that work undertaken in that
hurried fashion must do more harm than good; but she was too eager to
speak of Rhoda Sampson to think much of anything else. "You have
someone to help you, Miss Smythe told us yesterday," she said.
"Someone who typewrites your letters."
"Oh, Miss Sampson? Yes, she is an energetic little thing. But she has
vexed me to-day. I particularly wanted her this afternoon, and she has
asked for a holiday. Her little cousin is ill, and she wants to take him

into the country somewhere. She has just gone. You must have met her
on the stairs."
Miss Merivale started. "Yes, I met someone coming down. Was that
Miss Sampson? Then she is not coming back to-day? I wanted some
programmes typewritten. Could you give me her address?"
"Yes, I have it here somewhere. But she will be here on Monday. I will
speak to her, if you like I shall be glad to get her some work; for after
next week I shall not want her, though I have not told her so yet.
Mother is coming home rather sooner than we expected, and I am going
back to Desborough with her."
"Indeed? You will be sorry to give up your work, won't you, my dear?"
asked Miss Merivale mechanically, as she watched Clare turning over
her address-book.
"Mother has promised that I shall come back later on and stay with
Aunt Metcalfe. I shall like that better than this. One gets tired of a flat
after a time. But here is Miss Sampson's address. Will you write to her,
or shall I tell her what you want?"
"I will go there now," Miss Merivale said, her hand closing eagerly on
the slip of paper Clare gave her. "She has just come from Australia,
Miss Smythe said."
"Yes; they have been in England a few months only. I know nothing
more of her. But she is a good little thing. Pauline does not like her, but
Pauline is too critical sometimes. I notice that she is strangely lacking
in sympathy towards girls of Miss Sampson's class."
It was a long drive from Chelsea to Acacia Road, Kentish Town. Miss
Merivale knew London very little, though she had lived near it all her
life, and the dreary, respectable streets she drove through after leaving
Oxford Street behind her oppressed her even more than Whitechapel
had done in her one visit to it with Tom, the year before, to see a loan
collection of pictures. Street after street of blank, drab-faced
houses--dull, unsmiling houses! She thought of children growing up

there, wan and joyless, like plants kept out of the sun. And then two
happy-eyed boys came running by with their satchels under their arms,
while a door opened and a woman with a smiling mother-face came out
to welcome them. And Miss Merivale confessed to herself the mistake
she had been making. Where love is, even a dull London street has its
sunshine.
Acacia Road was reached at last, and the cab drew up before a small
bow-windowed house that had a card, "Apartments to Let," over the
hall door. A little servant with a dirty apron and a merry face opened
the door, and two boys with bright red pinafores came rushing from the
sitting-room behind her.
Miss Sampson wasn't in, but her aunt, Mrs. M'Alister, was, the smiling
servant-maid told Miss Merivale, and led the way into the front
sitting-room. The boys ran upstairs. Miss Merivale heard them shouting
to their