‘I dare say. But if the war doesn’t stop soon we shall have to do something, if it was only to try and teach the poor women to make the most of their bits of stuff. Most of them are no housekeepers to speak of. They can spin and weave, but they can’t make home comfortable, and after all, that’s the chief thing. But,’ she added, suddenly remembering different reports she had heard of Sebastian, and Helena’s contemptuous announcement that he was a fop, who thought the world was made for his amusement, and that there was nothing in life worth the trouble of being earnest about, ‘you won’t be much interested in these kind of things, Mr. Mallory.’ ‘On the contrary, I am much interested in it. Your idea makes me wonder if something could not be done. If some schools, or something of that kind, could be established,[2] if some of the ladies of the town would take it up--my mother and you, for example, Mrs. Spenceley--and make it unnecessary for those poor girls to be wandering about, laughing and making fun of people in the streets as I saw them the other day. And your daughter--I should think Miss Spenceley would find the work congenial.’ ‘Helena!’ echoed the mother, shaking her head. ‘It’s of no use talking about her, Mr. Mallory. She has always some fresh craze in her head, and never a useful one. That horrid Miss Mereweather has been the ruin of her.’ Sebastian repressed a smile. ‘If she only would turn to something useful!’ lamented Mrs. Spenceley, ‘but with these ridiculous ideas about women being better than men, and all that--and she can’t even make a shirt for her father or a pudding for her brother. Oh, but I beg your pardon--only I do often tell her that she would never make a good wife with these ideas--not if she had millions of pounds and was the prettiest girl in England.’ Though Mrs. Spenceley threw back her head and spoke in a tone of annoyance, yet Sebastian clearly distinguished an accent of pride in her voice. The homely mother then was not altogether displeased with her wilful, brilliant girl. ‘And what does she say to that?’ he asked, looking at Hugo and Helena, who seemed to be greatly enjoying some remarkably good joke; and he thought: ‘The prettiest girl in England! At least she might hold her own amongst a dozen of the prettiest.’ ‘Oh, she says she never will be married, and that nonsense. I tell her to wait until Mr. Right comes, and then we shall hear a different song. I wish he would, I’m sure,’ she added fervently, ‘before she gets spoiled. She has a right good heart, has Helena, if only a giddy head.’