The Old Wives' Tale

shop. It is true that Mrs. Baines made her pastry in the morning, and that Saturday morning in the shop was scarcely different from any other morning. Nevertheless, Mrs. Baines made her past

y contrast, seemed luminous and gay; the architect may have considered and intended this effect of the staircase. The kitchen saw day through a wide, shallow window whose top touched the ceiling and whose bottom had been out of the girls' reach until long after they had begun to go to school. Its panes were small, and about half of them were of the "knot" kind, through which no object could be distinguished; the

oot of the steps was a doorway, without a door, leading to two larders, dimmer even than the kitchen, vague retreats made visible by whitewash, where bowls of milk, dishes of cold bones, and remainders of fruit-pies, reposed on stillages; in the corner nearest the kitchen was a great steen in which the bread was kept. Another doorway on the other side of the kitchen led to the first coal-cellar, where was also the slopstone and tap, and thence a tunnel took you to the second coal-cellar, where

r hands, as far as the knuckles, covered with damp flour. Her ageless smooth paste-board occupied a corner of the table, and near it were her paste-ro

here?" she heard a

my c

d hesitating clinked on the stair

ich might not touch anything but flour. "Thank you. It bothered me. And now stand out of my light. I'm in a

ie to make Mr

O

rt she had considered herself just a trifle superior to the strange land and its ways. This feeling, confirmed by long experience, had never left her. It was this feeling which induced her to continue making her own pastry-with two thoroughly trained "great girls" in the house! Constance could make good pastry, but it was not her mother's pastry. In pastry-making everything can be taught except the "hand," light and firm, which wields the roller. One is born with this hand,

eating slices of half-cooked apple. "This comes of having no

know. I

She knew everything that a mother can know of a daughter, and she was sure that Sophia had

id she, "butter me the inside of this dish. A

te. The best fresh butter! Cooking butter, to say naught of lard, was unknown in that kitchen on Fri

aid Mrs. Baines, in the vein of small-talk, as s

y from the table to the range. There was a toasti

gh to leave. And as we'd decided in any case that Constance was to l

the toasting-fork, "what am I go

rest of parents are not always clever enough to deny themselves, "I hope that

irritated. "But wh

ight begin to make yourself useful in the underwear, gloves, silks, and so on. Then between you

to go into the

f glance at her, unobserved by the child, whose face was towards the fire. She deemed herself a finished expert in the reading of Sophia's moods; nevertheless, a

s. Baines, with the curious, grim politeness which

, after having rebounded from the ash-tin

g-fork. "I think it's me that should ask you instead of you asking me. What shall you do? Your

an exceptional parent, but that morning she seemed unable to avoid the absurd pretensions which

inciple of family life, namely, that the parent has conferred on the offspring a sup

ve school at all," s

with an air of quiet reasoning, of putting herself on a level with Soph

e, which she whipped into the oven, shut

uld like to be a teacher.

could be heard distinctly and systematicall

cher?" inquir

kind is there?" said So

twy

like that," Mrs. Baines replied

y n

't be quit

sort of ferocity. She had now quitted the

What startled and surprised Mrs. Baines was the perfect and unthinkable madness of Sophia's infantile scheme. It was a revelation to Mrs. Baines. Why in the name of heaven had the girl taken such a notion into her head? Orphans, widows, and spinsters of a certain age suddenly thrown on the world-these were the women who, naturally, became teachers, because they had to become something. But

away from home," said Mrs. B

reamt-of dangers in Sophia's erratic temperament, she kept her presence of mind sufficiently well to behave with diplomatic smoothness. It was undoubtedly

id?" Sophia c

ening in Bursley,"

me, and then after a time

ter? Wha

as a big school in

e. The pie was doing well, under all the circumstances. In those few seconds she refle

hester. London, 'after a time'! No, diplomacy would

t the line must be drawn. The fact is, we've spoilt you, and instead of getting better as you grow up, you're getting worse. Now let me hear no more of this, please. I wish you would imitate your sister a little more. Of course if you won't do your share

in such a tone as Mrs. Baines had not employed since dismiss

, mo

keep its affairs to itself, the assumption being that Maggie and all the shop-staff (Mr. Povey possibly excepted) were obsessed by a ravening appetite for that which

r to her double chin. "That wil

with a brusque precipitation