dBooks desire

``Yes,'' said she.
``You must have realized it several years ago,'' he
went on. ``Instead of allowing your mother to keep on
wasting money in entertaining lavishly here to give
you a chance to marry, you should have been preparing
yourself to earn a living.'' A pause. ``Isn't that true,
miss?''
He had a way of pronouncing the word ``miss'' that
made it an epithet, a sneer at her unmarried and un-
marriageable state. She colored, paled, murmured:
``Yes.''
``Then, better late than never. You'll do well to
follow my advice and go to New York and look about
you.''
``I'll--I'll think of it,'' stammered she.
And she did think of it. But in all her life she had
never considered the idea of money-making. That was
something for men, and for the middle and lower classes
--while Hanging Rock was regarded as most noisomely
middle class by fashionable people, it did not so regard
itself. Money-making was not for ladies. Like all her
class, she was a constant and a severe critic of the
women of the lower orders who worked for her as milliners,
dressmakers, shop-attendants, cooks, maids.


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