“There, there,” said mother, almost harshly. “It can’t be helped, Ernestine. Get the blue dish for the potatoes, and then ring the gong. We mustn’t keep Miss Brown waiting.”
So dinner was served; but though Miss Brown was really very nice, and said that everything was “delicious,” and she thought we should find the new régime a real improvement on the old, I could not feel much pleasure in her praise.
“Shall I tell you something?” asked Ernie, unexpectedly, as she set a dish of milk for Rosebud on the hearth, after the table was cleared and Miss Brown had gone upstairs. “Well, Uncle George is a devil. There!”
“Ernie,” said mother, turning in the doorway with Robin’s tray, which she was about to carry to the nursery, “I don’t wish you to speak that way. It is not right. Uncle George has been a good friend to us, according to his lights, and in this instance the fault is entirely with Hazard. He was foolish and careless, and we cannot expect an exception to be made in his case. It was against my wishes that he took a position,—now it lies with himself to make the best of it, and to try to overcome those faults of character which prevent his being the comfort and support to me that I have a right to expect.”
Poor Hazey, who was helping dry the dishes, blushed to the roots of his hair, and dropped a cup and smashed it.
Oh, dear! I do feel so sorry for everybody! That big splash is a tear;—and to-night there just don’t seem to be any roses, so there!
Monday, December 22.
All last night the wind whistled and howled about the house. This morning we woke to a snowstorm of almost blizzard proportions. And, oh, but the atmosphere was arctic!
“You get up first,” says Ernie, poking her little pink nose above the bed-covers.
“Indeed, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I answered. “It’s your turn.”