Jim had learnt prudence. Slowly he turned on his heel and went back to the surgery. Closing the street door, he resumed his chair by the fire, and in a narrow street just off the alley a group of Hooligans, baffled again, uttered curses of disappointment as they slowly dispersed about their bad business.
"In my opinion," quoth Miss Bird, looking up from her embroidery (she was making Dora a table-centre for a wedding present), "girls have too many dresses. When I was your age, my dear, I had two dresses--one for everyday and the other for Sundays. They were both black. In those days girls were taught to be contented with a few clothes, and to make them last a _very_ long time!"
"How long did you have to make your best dress last?" asked Dora.
"Just fancy!" cried Dora. "Why, it must have been _green_ by that time."
"It _was_ green," acknowledged Miss Bird, with a hard smile.
"I _did_ hate wearing it," said Miss Bird; "I loathed the sight of it. I could have torn it to pieces. But it was my only good dress, and so I kept it in constant repair, and cleaned it, and brushed it, and put it away very carefully every Sunday night or after a party. Ah! young girls had a very different time of it forty years ago, _I_ can tell you, my dear!"
Dora gazed at Miss Bird in some surprise. The severe-looking maiden lady seldom spoke so feelingly. Yet, of late, she had talked to Dora a good deal. Dora had given up her situation at the post-office--by Harold Jefferson's express desire--and so was at home all day now. Consequently, she and Miss Bird saw much of each other, and a kind of little friendliness had grown up between them which had never existed previously. In fact, before this cold, wet January set in, Miss Bird had seemed to entertain a feeling of dislike for Dora.
"No," recommended Miss Bird, who probably felt that she had shown a little too much of her human side, "in those days girls didn't gad about on bicycles and scamper after footballs and cricket balls like so many boys. Nor did they go to the theatre alone with young men. No, in my young days I wasn't even allowed to look out of the window at people passing along the pavement. I was fined a shilling if I did. You may not believe that, but it's true! I was brought up very strictly by an aunt in a country village, and I don't suppose anybody on this earth--except a convict in prison, who deserves all he gets, the rascal!--ever passed such a monotonous existence as I did."