L. Meade - Jill - A Flower Girl

Jill looked at Nat, who rose suddenly, went up to his sister, and laid one hand suddenly on her shoulder.

“Look you here, my gel,” he said, “Jill and I can say nothing to-night. We’ll give you your answer in a day or so. And now, Jill, if you’ll put on your hat we’ll go out a bit, and have a talk all by ourselves and fix up matters.”

“It would be a right good thing for Jill to join the Guild,” said Susy. “You ought to persuade her, Nat. She’d be a credit to you in the uniform, instead of going about the outlandish guy she is, in that flashy apron and turban.”

“The prettiest bit of a wild flower in Lunnon for all that,” murmured Nat under his breath. His honest eyes glowed with admiration. Jill smiled up at him.

She went into the other room to fetch her despised turban, which she tied under her chin, instead of coiling it as usual round her head.

“You’ll wait till we come back, Susy,” said her brother. She nodded acquiescence, and proceeded to give enlarged editions of her views on various matters to poor Poll. The boys lounged about for a little, then went out.

Susy helped Poll to wash up the supper things, and then she drew in her chair close to the little stove, glad, warm as the evening was, to toast her toes, and quite inclined to pour some more of her wisdom over Poll’s devoted head.

Mrs Robinson, however, had a knack of shutting up her ears when she did not care to listen. She sat now well forward on her seat, her big hands folded on her knee, her large black eyes gazing through Susy at something else – at a picture which filled her soul with sullen pain.

Susy expatiated on the delights of the Flower Girls’ Guild, on the advantages of the neat uniform, on the money-profit which must surely arise by keeping flowers in the room provided by the Guild all night. Susy was intent on proselytising. If she could only get Mrs Robinson and Jill to join the Guild she felt that her evening’s work would not be in vain.

Poll sat mute as if she were taking in every word. Suddenly she spoke.

“What are you staying on for, Susy Carter?”

Susy, drawn up short, replied with almost hesitation —

“Nat told me to wait for him. But I can go,” she added a little stiffly, “ef I’m in the way. I ain’t one to stay loitering round in any room ef I’m not wanted.”

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