princesses; so that I found myself wondering whether, to draw out
this accomplishment, I couldn't get the editor of the Cheapside to
publish a really royal romance, "A Tale of Buckingham Palace."
Sometimes, however, the real thing and the make-believe came into
contact; by which I mean that Miss Churm, keeping an appointment or
coming to make one on days when I had much work in hand, encountered
her invidious rivals. The encounter was not on their part, for they
noticed her no more than if she had been the housemaid; not from
intentional loftiness, but simply because, as yet, professionally,
they didn't know how to fraternise, as I could guess that they would
have liked--or at least that the Major would. They couldn't talk
about the omnibus--they always walked; and they didn't know what else
to try--she wasn't interested in good trains or cheap claret.
Besides, they must have felt--in the air--that she was amused at
them, secretly derisive of their ever knowing how. She was not a
person to conceal her scepticism if she had had a chance to show it.
On the other hand Mrs. Monarch didn't think her tidy; for why else
did she take pains to say to me (it was going out of the way, for
Mrs. Monarch), that she didn't like dirty women?

One day when my young lady happened to be present with my other
sitters (she even dropped in, when it was convenient, for a chat), I
asked her to be so good as to lend a hand in getting tea--a service
with which she was familiar and which was one of a class that, living
as I did in a small way, with slender domestic resources, I often
appealed to my models to render. They liked to lay hands on my
property, to break the sitting, and sometimes the china--I made them
feel Bohemian. The next time I saw Miss Churm after this incident
she surprised me greatly by making a scene about it--she accused me
of having wished to humiliate her. She had not resented the outrage