Mrs. Garden turned and looked up at them with a quick movement and a laugh, though tears wet her cheeks; it was like one of Jane’s swift changes.
“What wheedlers! And what determination!” she cried. “Very well, then, I’ll give in, and do the unheard-of: get up before six in the morning and go outdoors! Only wait till I write my English friends what little monsters I found over here, ready to drag me to torture! You two will have to be my maids and help me dress. I’m the most helpless creature, and you wouldn’t let me bring a maid over. I give you due notice: I’m going to get one here!”
“You shall have three, mother, if you like! First try us, and see if we can’t hook, and button, and brush you! We want to so dreadfully!” cried Jane. “That would be three, counting Florimel, though that wasn’t what I meant.” She dropped on her knees again, and began putting on her mother’s stockings and shoes, while Mary busied herself with sorting out the hairpins and small belongings on the dressing-table.
Both girls had become painfully shy and awkward, plainly trying to conquer it and make their mother feel, what was true, that they delighted in waiting upon her, but were too ill at ease to reveal their pleasure. Mrs. Garden, on the contrary, grew merry and playful. She had decided that the adventure of rising at what she called “the middle of the night” was wholly funny, and she chattered and laughed throughout her dressing, without a hint of her former sadness.
Florimel added herself to the other two “Abigails,” as Mrs. Garden called her lady’s maids, and claimed for her share of the service her mother’s pretty light-brown hair. “It’s awfully soft and fluffy,” said Florimel admiringly. “Is it the shampoo?”
“Eggs, my dear,” said her mother. “The last maid I had would use nothing else. You don’t imagine that’s why I get up with the chickens--that the eggs have gone to my head, in another sense?”
“Perhaps you recited Chantecler; did you, mother?” suggested Mary. “You did recite, as well as sing, didn’t you?”
“Oh, dear me, yes, but nothing of that sort! Child things. They say I can speak like a little girl. And then I wore the most ravishing little blue frock, and a captivating white pinafore. They say I actually looked a child. I’ll do it for you some day. But what I love best to do is imitations. I’ll do them all for you. My voice lets me recite for a short time,” said Mrs. Garden eagerly.