Maggie studied this strange new being, her hired "companion," with
furtive keenness; and after a few minutes, though she was shyly
obedient in the manner of an untutored orphan from the West, she had
no fear of the other. Miss Grierson was a large, flat-backed woman who
was on the descending slope of middle age. She was really a
"gentlewoman," in the self-pitying and self-praising sense in which
those who advertise themselves as such use that word. She was all the
social forms, all the proprieties. She was deferentially autocratic;
her voice was monotonously dignified and cultured; and she was tired,
which she had a right to be, for she had been in this business of
being a gentlewomanly hired aunt to raw young girls for over a quarter
of a Century.
To the tired but practical eye of Miss Grierson, here was certainly a
young woman who needed a lot of working over to make into a lady. And
though weary and unthrillable as an old horse, Miss Grierson was
conscientious, and she was going to do her best.
Maggie made a swift survey of her new home. The rooms were just
ordinary hotel rooms, furnished with the dingy, wholesale
pretentiousness of hotels of the second rate. But they were the
essence of luxury compared to her one room at the Duchess's with its
view of dreary back yards.
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