She was seated in her usual sitting room when Mary arrived. Her hair was drawn back above her ears and tied untidily with a dirty yellow ribbon; she wore a loose wrapper, and her stocking feet were thrust into red slippers. Her fingers were loaded with rings, and ear drops hung from her ears. Her complexion was something coarser for the wear and tear of time, and had very plain traces of being now indebted to white paint and rouge, for whatever pretensions it claimed. Her forehead was crossed by horizontal impatient wrinkles, and a deep frown was cut between her eyebrows. She was thin about the breast and shoulders, and very slender in the waist, more so than in her youthful prime. The general expression of her face was querulous and sour—precisely such an expression as she might have been expected to wear. As Mary was shown in she looked up with a sharp, impatient gesture.
“So, Miss, you have come for the amount of your bill!”
“Don’t _mem_ me as if I was fifty, Miss.”
“Did I not forbid your saying _marm_ to me—what is the amount of the bill?”
“That is better. Ah, yes, here it is, $17 19, What did your mistress say about the 19 cents?”
“Very well; here is seventeen dollars. Receipt it.” Mary took a pen from an inkstand on the table and acknowledged the payment.
“Humph, you write too pretty a hand for an apprentice girl,” said Miss Clayton, glancing contemptuously at Mary’s beautiful chirography. “I dare say you can dance too?”
“And sing and play,” more contemptuously still.
“Humph. Read Byron, Moore, Scott, doubtless, and perhaps the French poets?” she continued with a contemptuous smile of incredulity.
“Yes, Miss. I suppose if I should ask you if you read French and sung Italian, you would reply with your parrot phrase, ‘yes, Miss.’”
“Upon my word! Ha, ha, ha! here’s a linen-draper’s apprentice for you! I suppose you look to marry some nobleman at the least, with all them accomplishments, if you can! What package is that beneath your arm, my pretty minx,” for Miss Clayton had conceived a sudden and unaccountable (save that her youth and beauty were the cause,) dislike for Mary. And without waiting for a reply she snatched it from her.
“_For_ Major Leslie Pierpoint, No. 27, South Sixth St.”