“Why, you must remember her. She has come to the Barstow every summer for years. At least as long as you have. She sits under the ptarmigan in the dining-room.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. For a long time I thought her name was ‘Mather’ and wondered if she were a relative of Hopestill’s. I did not inquire. I don’t understand why you should have been late on account of her, though. She’s simply the kind of fright one stares through if one’s in a hurry, ain’t she?” In a sense, she had forgotten who I was and that I could not possibly have cut Mrs. Prather. I went on to tell her of my conversation with the stupid but kindly old soul who believed I had become a prostitute. Miss Pride was vexed, not because of Mrs. Prather’s delusion, but because I had spoken unguardedly in front of the maid. She rebuked me while the girl was still in the room. Upon her mischievous Irish face appeared a grin of malicious pleasure, so that I knew the scene would be reproduced in the cellar as soon as we had left the dining-room. “For a moment I couldn’t place Mrs. Prather,” she said. “But now I recall that she is a woman of great breeding, and if she thought you were pursuing the oldest profession as it were, she probably had good reason. I have often warned you, as you can’t deny, that the excessive rouge you use on your lips is far from good taste. And I should remind you that in scorning Mrs. Prather’s offer to recommend you as an upstairs maid may, in time, prove to be the greatest folly. If I were you, I would not be at all sure that I would not end up as an upstairs maid or even as a ‘useful’ servant.”

She had never spoken so harshly before. In my agitation I took far more meat than I could use and it occupied so much space on my plate that when Emma came round with the vegetables I had to push it to one side and in doing so pushed it off onto the table altogether. Miss Pride, whose avian eyes had not rested for a moment in their barrage of killing looks on me, said, “Oh, my soul! Emma, bring a clean mat for Miss Marburg.” The girl, nearly overcome, rushed to the pantry and banged the door shut, there, as I imagined, to giggle at my bungling. But when she returned with a clean napkin, the scolding was over and Miss Pride was genially telling me of her morning which she had spent with her Cambridge friend, the widow of the Harvard professor, in the Concord burying ground.