White Lilac | Page 4

learning
the piano. And when I showed her that screen Gusta worked-- lilies on
blue satting, a re'lly elegant thing--she just turned her head and says,
`I'd rather, if she were a gal of mine, see her knit her own stockings.'
Those were her words, Mrs Wishing."
"Ah, well, it's easy to talk," replied Mrs Wishing soothingly, "we'll be
able to see how she'll bring up a daughter of her own now."
"I'm not saying," pursued Mrs Greenways, turning a watchful eye on
Mr Dimbleby's movements, "that Mary White haven't a perfect right to

name her child as she chooses. I'm too fair for that, I hope. What I do
say is, that now she's picked up a fancy sort of name like Lilac, she
hasn't got any call to be down on other people. And if me and
Greenways likes to see our girls genteel and give 'em a bit of finishing
eddication, and set 'em off with a few accomplishments, it's our own
affair and not Mary White's. And though I say it as shouldn't, you won't
find two more elegant gals than Gusta and Bella, choose where you
may."
During the last part of her speech Mrs Greenways had been poking and
squeezing her parcel of sugar into its appointed corner of her basket; as
she finished she settled it on her arm, clutched at her gown with the
other hand, and prepared to start.
"And now, as I'm in a hurry, I'll say good night, Mrs Pinhorn and Mrs
Wishing, and good night to you, Mr Dimbleby."
She rolled herself and her burden through the narrow door of the shop,
and for a moment no one spoke, while all the little clocks ticked away
more busily than ever.
"She's got enough to carry," said Mrs Pinhorn, breaking silence at last,
with a sideway nod at her neighbour.
"She have so," agreed Mrs Wishing mildly; "and I wonder, that I do, to
see her carrying that heavy basket on foot--she as used to come in her
spring cart."
Mrs Pinhorn pressed her lips together before answering, then she said
with meaning: "They're short of hands just now at Orchards Farm, and
maybe short of horses too."
"You don't say so!" said Mrs Wishing, drawing nearer.
"My Ben works there, as you know, and he says money's scarce there,
very scarce indeed. One of the men got turned off only t'other day."
"Lor', now, to think of that!" exclaimed Mrs Wishing in an awed

manner. "An' her in that bonnet an' all them artificials!"
"There's a deal," continued Mrs Pinhorn, "in what Mrs White says
about them two Greenways gals with their fine-lady ways. It 'ud a been
better to bring 'em up handy in the house so as to help their mother. As
it is, they're too finnicking to be a bit of use. You wouldn't see either of
them with a basket on their arm, they'd think it lowering themselves.
And I dare say the youngest 'll grow up just like 'em."
"There's a deal in what Mrs Greenways's just been saying too,"
remarked the woman called Mrs Wishing in a hesitating voice, "for Mrs
James White is a very strict woman and holds herself high, and `Lilac'
is a fanciful kind of a name; but I dunno." She broke off as if feeling
incapable of dealing with the question.
"I can't wonder myself," resumed Mrs Pinhorn, "at Mrs Greenways
being a bit touchy. You heard, I s'pose, what Mrs White up and said to
her once? You didn't? Well, she said, `You can't make a silk purse out
of a sow's ear, and you'll never make them girls ladies, try all you will,'
says she. `Useless things you'll make 'em, fit for neither one station or
t'other.'"
"That there's plain speaking!" said Mrs Wishing admiringly.
Mr Dimbleby had not uttered a word during this conversation, and was
to all appearance entirely occupied in weighing out, tying up parcels,
and receiving orders. In reality, however, he had not lost a word of it,
and had been getting ready to speak for some time past. Neither of the
women, who were well acquainted with him, was at all surprised when
he suddenly remarked: "It were Mrs Leigh herself as had to do with the
name of Mrs James White's baby."
"Re'lly, now?" said Mrs Wishing doubtfully.
"An' it were Mrs Leigh herself as I heard it from," continued Dimbleby
ponderously, without noticing the interruption.
"Well, that makes a difference, don't it now?" said Mrs Pinhorn. "Why

ever didn't you name that afore, Mr Dimbleby?"
"And," added Dimbleby, grinding on to the end of his speech regardless
of hindrance, like a machine that has been wound up; "and Mrs Leigh
herself is goin' to stand for the baby."
"Lor'! I do