He was afraid she would
'overdo' herself, and rather than that should happen he desired her to
let the business go to the--ahem! He made her write every day to say
how she was, and was wretched till he returned to relieve her of her
arduous duties. She made friends with me during the scarlet fever
epidemic. Number eight was a baby then, and she was afraid he might
catch the disease and be taken to the hospital and die for want of her;
and I sympathised strongly with her denunciations of the cruelty of the
act. Fancy taking little babies from their mothers! Barbarous, don't
you think it? One day a lady came into the shop while I was there. She
was dressed in a bright pink costume, with a large hat all smothered in
pink feathers. I thought of the Queen of Sheba, and felt alarmed. Mrs.
Polter told me afterwards she was 'just a lady,' rolling in recently
acquired wealth, and 'as hard to please as if she had never washed her
own doorstep.' It was then I learnt the difference between 'a lady' and
'a real lady.'"
One of Ideala's exploits got into the paper somehow, and she was
annoyed about it, and anxious to make us believe the account of the
risk she ran had been greatly exaggerated.
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