Edgar Jepson

“ Brown had been thanked, paid, and dismissed; and Pollyooly, having sufficiently fondled and kissed the irresponsive but unresisting Lump, went into the kitchen and set about getting ready the Honourable John Ruffin's tea.
She had lighted the gas under the kettle and taken the bread and butter from the cupboard, when he came into the kitchen, wearing an air of the most earnest purpose, and said impressively:
"Genius, Pollyooly—genius is the art of taking infinite pains." ”

“ Those friends were young, and they were alive, keenly alive, to the fact that there is a steady demand for angels in that sphere of British and German industry curiously known as musical comedy. They could not conceive that, since she had to work for a living, Pollyooly's natural grace and the agility she had acquired in her earlier childhood, at the village of Muttle Deeping, and still retained, could be put to more agreeable and profitable use than that of helping to supply this demand for angels, and so help to raise the British ideal of womanly beauty. ”

“ For three mornings in the week therefore, Pollyooly, taking the Lump with her, went to Madame Correlli's dancing class in Soho; and thanks to her active early life at Muttle Deeping, was esteemed by that accomplished lady one of her most promising pupils. It is no wonder that Pollyooly and her young friend and fiancé Lord Ronald Ricksborough, the heir of the Duke of Osterley, looked forward with confidence to the day when she should be a shining light of musical comedy and the proper wife for a British nobleman. ”

“ I'm his housekeeper."
"Oh, if I could!" said Millicent wistfully.
"He might let you. He's very kind," said Pollyooly hopefully. "And if he did, I wonder what kind of a job you could get. What kind of work can you do?"
"I can do housework," said Millicent eagerly. "I always did our room—all of it. And I cooked all our meals. Mother went out such a lot, you know."
"It's something," said Pollyooly soberly. "But I expect you've got a lot to learn. You see I learnt a lot at Muttle Deeping. Aunt Hannah had a whole house there—before she lost all her savings in a gold mine and came to London. ”

“ Well, I said I was going to my aunt in Southwark. I had an aunt in Southwark once—only she's dead. But I couldn't think of anywhere to go—there didn't seem to be anywhere. So I thought I'd better go back to Mrs. ”