ost and Miss Pinnegar, _gratis_? Yet there they were. And doubtful
if James was ever grateful for their presence.

If Miss Frost saved him from heaven knows what domestic debacle and
horror, Miss Pinnegar saved him from the workhouse. Let us not mince
matters. For a dozen years Miss Frost supported the heart-stricken,
nervous invalid, Clariss Houghton: for more than twenty years she
cherished, tended and protected the young Alvina, shielding the
child alike from a neurotic mother and a father such as James. For
nearly twenty years she saw that food was set on the table, and
clean sheets were spread on the beds: and all the time remained
virtually in the position of an outsider, without one grain of
established authority.

And then to find Miss Pinnegar! In her way, Miss Pinnegar was very
different from Miss Frost. She was a rather short, stout,
mouse-coloured, creepy kind of woman with a high colour in her
cheeks, and dun, close hair like a cap. It was evident she was not a
lady: her grammar was not without reproach. She had pale grey eyes,
and a padding step, and a soft voice, and almost purplish cheeks.
Mrs. Houghton, Miss Frost, and Alvina did not like her. They
suffered her unwillingly.

But from the first she had a curious ascendancy over James Houghton.
One would have expected his aesthetic eye to be offended. But no
doubt it was her voice: her soft, near, sure voice, which seemed
almost like a secret touch upon her hearer. Now many of her hearers
disliked being secretly touched, as it were beneath their clothing.
Miss Frost abhorred it: so did Mrs. Houghton. Miss Frost's voice was
clear and straight as a bell-note, open as the day. Yet Alvina,
though in loyalty she adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, did not
really mind the quiet suggestive power of Miss Pinnegar. For Miss
Pinnegar was not vulgarly insinuating. On the contrary, the things
she said were rather clumsy and downright. It was only that she
seemed to weigh what she said, secretly, before she said it, and
then she approached as if she would slip it into her hearer's
consciousness without his being aware of it. She seemed to slide her
speeches unnoticed into one's ears, so that one accepted them
without the slightest challenge. That was just her manner of
approach. In her own way, she was as loyal and unselfish as Miss
Frost. There are such poles of opposition between honesties and
loyalties.

Miss Pinnegar had the _second_ class of girls in the Sun