THE QUALITY OF PARKER
and appropriate name with which the Sea Lady came primed), and who replaced the box of the presumably dank and drowned and dripping "Tom" by a jewel case, a dressing bag and the first of the Sea Lady's trunks.
On a thousand little occasions this Parker showed a sense of propriety that was penetratingly fine. For example, in the shop one day when "things" of an intimate sort were being purchased, she suddenly intervened.
"There are stockings, Mem," she said in a discreet undertone, behind, but not too vulgarly behind, a fluttering straight hand.
"Stockings!" cried Mrs. Bunting. "But!"
"I think, Mem, she should have stockings," said Parker, quietly but very firmly.
And come to think of it, why should an unavoidable deficiency in a lady excuse
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