"Well, don't you worry about me, girls," says the boy, looking up with a flushed face; "I daresay I shall get along somehow."
"Well now," says Doris, "I want to know all about the Horton boys. Were they really of much use in the moving? and is Hugh reading hard now? Oh, and that reminds me!" she cries, without waiting for answers to her questions, "Colonel and Mrs. Danvers called while we were at aunt's to say good-bye; they start for India in a week's time. The colonel told me to tell you both how sorry he is not to see you before leaving; and he begged me to say to you especially, Molly, that if Hugh is ordered to the same part of the country when he goes out he will keep an eye on him."
Molly, with a lingering remembrance of "the maiden-all-forlorn" episode, tosses her head with a slightly heightened colour, but takes no notice of the message otherwise. There is rather a long pause; then Doris, clasping her hands behind her head and leaning back against Honor's knees, says:
"How good every one has been to us in all this trouble! If it were not for the loss of dear father, the rest would have been almost worth going through if only for those proofs of real friendship which have been shown us—by Sir Peter and others—to say nothing of aunt's and Uncle John's kindness in starting us afresh."
"Yes," says Honor musingly, "we have indeed been fortunate. Who would have thought that the dear old piano would ever he ours again! and how glad dear father would be if he could know that some of his favourite pictures were hanging on these walls! That was such a kind thought of Colonel Danvers."
"Yes; it touched mother very much; and so did the Hortons' kindness—I don't know what you girls would have done without them. It's all very well for people to talk about the world being hard and cold; but to my thinking it's a very pleasant world, with lots of kind-hearted people in it."
Molly shakes her head dubiously.
"It has certainly been the case so far," she says, "but we don't know what is in store for us; we are none of us very old yet!"
"Well, you are a Job's comforter!" cries Doris, getting up and shaking herself. "I think after that we had all better shut up and retire to bed—don't you, Honor? We had better get all the sleep and strength we can before we are all hurled into this sea of trouble which Molly apparently descries looming in the distance! Hallo! here's Dick asleep! Wake up, my boy, wake up!—we're all off to bed!" and Doris administers sundry little sisterly pullings and pinchings, which eventually arouse Dick sufficiently to enable him lazily to follow his sisters up the stairs to bed.