"It ain't the place I mind," said Alice, cautiously, as the thought crossed her mind that Daisy was not yet formally engaged and might "back out", "but Jawge, my young man, 'e gets 'is meals at the Manor 'Aouse, an' 'e wants me where 'e can see me 'andy. But, come on, down't dordle so. Chuck your luggage under the bed or anyw'ere you please, whilst we go to see the Missis ... Ar--'alf a minit. Yeou do look a bit of a drab in that waist. Put on this one of mine till arfter we've seen the Missis. Mind and don't smudge it, faw you must give it back to me straightaway, as soon as she says she'll take you on. I shouldn't lend it you, only I want to make sure you're engaged, so I can be hoff to the Manor to my Jawge." Daisy put on the flimsy but clean lawn blouse. It was fashioned loose and low in the neck, or she would never have made it meet; for Daisy was superbly "full" where Alice was flat. "Yeou deou look a bit staout." Stout was not the word; but Alice was voicing envy, not admiration. "Come, now--we sharn't have any bother. She'll tieke you, straight off--I know she will." Sir Thomas Harrison's wife was in the dining-room, setting the table for tea, as she always did on evenings when there were no guests expected. Daisy, after a little catch of her breath at the size and appointments of this room, turned her eyes upon her new mistress and felt an immediate curious warming of the heart--curious, because Daisy usually faced strangers with an eye that danced with aggressiveness even while the cheek below it dimpled ingratiatingly: with speech that was chary, and with a capering confidence in her ability to "handle" any eventuality. Lady Harrison--without knowing it, however--disarmed Daisy Nixon at once with her mild brown eyes, her stooped housewifely shoulders, her mothering smile. Daisy felt that, some day soon, if she got and kept this situation, she would find herself talking to this woman more freely than she had ever talked to anyone in all her shrewd, guarded, combative sixteen and a half years.