Ellen Sharpe's birthday-book. Ellen handed it to her going upstairs and
had chanted the words out to the others and smiled her smile . . . she
had not asked her to write her name . . . was it unsociable to dislike
so many of the girls. . . . Ellen's people were in the Indian . . . her
thoughts hesitated. . . . Sivvle . . . something grand--All the grand
girls were horrid . . . somehow mean and sly . . . Sivvle . . . _Sivvle_
. . . _Civil!_ Of course! Civil _what?_

Miriam groaned. She was a governess now. Someone would ask her that
question. She would ask Pater before he went. . . . No, she would not.
. . . If only he would answer a question simply, and not with a superior
air as if he had invented the thing he was telling about. She felt she
had a right to all the knowledge there was, without fuss . . . oh,
without fuss--without fuss and--emotion. . . . I _am_ unsociable, I
suppose--she mused. She could not think of anyone who did not offend
her. I don't like men and I loathe women. I am a misanthrope. So's
Pater. He despises women and can't get on with men. We are
different--it's us, him and me. He's failed us because he's different
and if he weren't we should be like other people. Everything in the
railway responded and agreed. Like other people . . . horrible. . . .
She thought of the fathers of girls she knew--the Poole girls, for
instance, they were to be "independent" trained and certificated--she
envied that--but her envy vanished when she remembered how heartily she
had agreed when Sarah called them "sharp" and "knowing."

Mr. Poole was a business man . . . common . . . trade. . . . If Pater
had kept to Grandpa's business they would be trade, too--well-off,
now--all married. Perhaps as it was he had thought they would marry.