Joyce, being so untrained, had, however, but a poor account to give of her intercession. The Colonel could do nothing without Elizabeth, and his promise to consult his wife and see what steps could be taken did not convey much comfort to the parson’s wife. She listened to Joyce’s account of the manner in which she had fulfilled her commission with a lengthening face. At the end she jumped up and gave the girl a kiss which took Joyce very much by surprise. To this inexperienced Scotch peasant-girl the ways of the English were extravagant and full of demonstration, as are to English persons the manners of ‘foreigners’ in general, both being disposed to believe that to show so much was rather an indication that there was little feeling to show.
‘I am sure you meant it as well as possible,’ she said, ‘but you should have seized an opportunity and spoken to the dear Colonel when there was nobody there. Oh, I am sure you are as good as gold—and perhaps if they will really get up a movement—— But I’ve been promised that so often, I have not much faith in it. I thought you might just whisper a word to your dear father, who thinks all the world of you, and the thing would have been done.’ ‘It is the women,’ continued this oracle, ‘as I told you before, who hold back. If we had only the men to deal with, it would be much easier to manage. But the women calculate and reckon up, and they say, “It will be a loss of so much on the year’s income;” or “There is so and so I wanted to buy; if I let him give the money away, I shall have to do without it.” That is how they go on. Whereas the men don’t think; they just put their hands in their pockets, and the thing’s done—or it isn’t done,’ she added, with a sudden smile, looking up in Joyce’s face. ‘Never mind,’ she continued, ‘don’t let us make ourselves unhappy about it. Come and see what I am doing.’ She returned to the corner from which she had sprung up on Joyc
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e’s entrance. ‘Come and I’ll show you my workshop, and how I keep the pot boiling,’ she cried.
The room was divided into two, a larger and a smaller portion, with folding-doors, as is usual in such small habitations; but these doors were always open, and Mrs. Sitwell’s corner was at the farther end, commanding the whole space. Joyce saw with amazement a quantity of small photographs ranged upon the ornate but rather shabby little desk at which her friend worked, and which was covered with sheets of paper, each containing a piece of writing and a number. Mrs. Sitwell took up one of the photographs and handed it to Joyce.
‘Now tell me,’ she said, ‘what would you think was the character of that gentleman, supposing that you were going to marry him, or to make him your friend, or to engage him as your butler? What would you think of him from his face?’
‘I think,’ said Joyce, bewildered, ‘that I should not be—very fond of him: but I don’t know why.’
‘Oh, you dreadful little critic! why shouldn’t you be fond of him, as you say? He is quite nice-looking—better than half the men you see. Now here is what he really is,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, lifting one of the pieces of paper and handing it to Joyce, who read with amazement: ‘No. 310.—This face is that of a man full of strength and character. The brow shows great resolution, the eyes much courage and judgment. The mouth is sensitive, and the nose expresses shrewdness and caution. He will be very decided in action, but never rash; very steady in his affections, but slow in forming any ties. There is a great but suppressed love of art and music in the lines about his eyes.’
‘Well, dear, do not stare at me so; don’t you think, now you look at him again, that it’s all true? or perhaps you would like this one better.’ The second was the photograph of a simpering girl, in that peculiar combination of stare and simper which only photographs give. ‘Now, don’t commit yourself,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, with a laugh. ‘Look at the account of all her perfections before you say anything. “No. 603.—Ethelinda is a young lady of many qualities. Her eyes show great sweetness of disposition. She will be very true, and when she gives her heart, will give it altogether. The lips show a highly sensitive and nervous disposition, feeling too strongly for her own peace. There are also signs of much musical power, and of great constancy in love."’
Joyce put down these two extraordinary literary compositions with something like consternation. ‘It is perhaps stupid of me,’ she said, ‘not to understand.
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’
‘Oh no; it is not stupid at all. Perhaps you have never seen the Pictorial? It has quite a great circulation, and is very popular. This is a new branch of the answers to correspondents that made the Family Herald such a success. Don’t you know the Answers to Correspondents in the Family Herald? Oh, you must indeed have been brought up out of the world! But the Pictorial is quite in advance of that. If you send your photograph to the editor, you receive next week a description of your character from Myra. Now Myra is me.’
‘Then those—are going into a newspaper,’ said Joyce, looking at the pieces of written paper with a mingling of curiosity and shame.
‘Those—are going into the Pictorial, and they are going to give a great deal of pleasure to various people, and to put a little money into my pocket, which wants it very much,’ said the parson’s wife. ‘Now, what is there to object to in that?’
‘Indeed,’ said Joyce, ‘I was not thinking of objecting. I was only taken by surprise.’
‘Ah!’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, with a little moisture enhancing the keen sparkling of her eyes, ‘that is what you all say, you well-off people, who never knew what it was to want a sovereign! You are surprised at the way we poor unfortunates have to take to make a little money. Why, I would simply do anything for a little money—anything that was not wrong, of course. You don’t know what money means to us. It means clothes for the children and a nursemaid to take care of them, and good food, which they require, and a hundred little things, which you people who never were in want of them never think of.’
‘But I was not accustomed to be rich. I know what it means to have nothing. No,’ Joyce added hurriedly, ‘perhaps that is not true; for when I had nothing I wanted nothing, and that must be the same thing as having everything. I find no difference,’ she said.
‘Then you don’t know anything about it, just the same. The dreadful thing is to have nothing and want a great many things—and this is the case of so many of us. How could we live upon poor Austin’s little pay? People think a clergyman ought to have private means—but where are we to get the private means? We have a little something in my family, but my mother has it for her life. I don’t want my mother to die, who is always so kind to the children, that I may get my little share. It would only be a few hundred pounds, after all. And Austin’s people thought they did enough for him when they gave him his education, as they call it—sending him to Oxford to learn expensive habits. A great deal
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 too much is made of education,’ said the parson’s wife. ‘I don’t think I shall take any trouble about education for my children. They get on better without it, in my opinion.’
This dreadful assertion made Joyce gasp with horror. Not take any trouble about education!—which was the only thing in all the world to take trouble about. But she did not trust herself to say anything, and indeed Mrs. Sitwell did not leave her time.
‘But they shall be comfortable and have things as nice as possible while they are babies,’ cried the parson’s wife; ‘and when I found out that I could do this, I was as pleased as Punch. One goes upon rules, you know—it is not all guess-work; and my opinion is, there is a great deal in it. Austin says that supposing these people had everything in their favour, no bad influences or anything of that kind, then what I find in their faces would be true. Let me see, now. Let me read yours. You have a great deal that is very nice in you, dear. You are of a most generous disposition. You would give anything in the world that you had to give. But you are apt to get frightened, and not to follow it out. And you are musical—I can see it in your eyes.’
‘Indeed, I don’t know anything at all about music.’
‘That has nothing to do with it,’ said Mrs. Sitwell. ‘You would have been if you had known. And you are very sensitive, dear. You put meanings upon what people say, and take offence, or the reverse, when none is meant. You are full of imagination; but you haven’t much courage. You love people very much, or you dislike them very much. You are devoted to them, or else you can’t endure them.’
‘I don’t think I ever do that,’ said Joyce sedately, taking it all with great gravity.
‘Oh, of course you have been modified by education, as Austin says. Nobody is just as nature made them; but that is what you would be if you had been left alone, you know. I’ll write it all out for you when I have a little time. Give me back Ethelinda and No. 310. I have a kind of idea these two simpletons are going to be married, and they want each to know a little more of the other—that is, you know, they want the prophet to agree with them; and say this is the sweetest girl that ever was—and that is the nicest man. And you may be sure that the better you speak of any one, the more you will agree with what they think of themselves. When you say they are musical and intellectual, and all that, they think how wonderful that you should understand them so well! though they may be the stupidest of people that ever were seen.
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’
‘But——’ Joyce said, with timidity.
‘I don’t want any buts. You would never let any one do anything if you were to carry a “but” with you everywhere. If you heard me say to Sir Sam the soap-boiler what excellent taste he had, and how beautiful his house was, you would think it was wrong perhaps, and put in that “but” of yours. But why? Gillow, who did it all, is supposed to have excellent taste, and poor dear Sir Sam thinks it perfection. And it pleases him to be told so. Why shouldn’t I please him? If I were of his way of thinking, I would admire it too; and don’t you see, when you sympathise with a man, and want to please him, you are of his way of thinking—for the moment,&............