The Craze of Christina — page 80: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

76 The Craze of Christina. will do quite as well as any other, I dare- say. The following afternoon found ‘‘Miss Pratt’’ knocking at the quaint brass knocker of Miss Ashley’s ivy-covered cottage in Oldcastle, High Street; her modest box was on the fly behind her, and soon she and her belongings were safely housed inside, Miss Ashley proved to be by no means the cross-grained old maid that somehow Chris had imagined her to be. She was not old to begin with—thirty-three at the outside—and she was very amiable and gracious in her reception of the young lady who wanted to come and be her shop assistant for nothing at all! This in point of fact was the delightful feature of the case, although the lady decorator secretly wondered a little what were Miss Pratt’s motives in offer- ing her services for no remuneration. ‘I suppose you want to learn the business?”’ she remarked tentatively, as the two ladies sat down to tea together that evening, each mentally taking stock of one another. Chris nodded. ‘‘Partly.’’ ‘‘And perhaps you have heard of me in Lon- don?”’ Miss Pratt only smiled her brilliant smile. She often found a silent smile a very effective Gomichd (0\(0) KS (E(0)