Honor (desperately)—"What is the use, Becky, of putting the kettle over a fire that has gone out. Oh, dear! oh, dear! I don't believe I shall ever be able to teach you anything; I really don't!"
Becky (resignedly)—"No, miss."
Then perhaps Doris, in an unusually domestic frame of mind, will come rushing into the sitting-room one morning, her arms full of the little light muslin draperies with which, at small cost, she and her sisters have so smartened up the scantily furnished bedrooms.
"Now, girls," she cries, "anything in this line that you want washed? Mother has actually trusted me with her lawn collars and cuffs. She remarked (in a not very complimentary manner, I think), 'that at least I could hardly do them worse than old Mrs. What's-her-name does them.' Yes, do you know, I really think I shall develop a talent for washing and ironing—so long as it is something light and pretty—laces or muslins, or something. I feel that it is in me somehow. Now, don't laugh! I'm going to dare Becky to let the fire out, on pain of death or instant dismissal."
All goes well and merrily for some time. The fire burns brightly, the kettle sings, the boiler hisses; and Doris, also singing, and attired in a big coarse white apron, stands over a small tub, her pretty arms plunged up to the elbows in soap-suds.
In the afternoon, however, loud and wrathful lamentations rend the air when Doris, having enjoyed a well-merited lounge in the only comfortable chair in the sitting-room, goes into the kitchen to commence her ironing, and finds—a plentiful supply of irons indeed, but carefully arranged before a fire which has been out a good hour or more! Doris does not take these little contre-temps so quietly as Honor, so there ensues a stormy torrent of scolding on her side, and mild protestations and feeble efforts at self-justification on Becky's, until the latter finally retires in floods of tears into the scullery, and Doris, being remonstrated with by Honor, rushes up to their bed-room in a fit of the sulks and locks herself in.
On the first Sunday that comes round, however, the whole family is electrified by an unexpected talent, not to say genius, for boot-cleaning, which Becky suddenly proves herself to possess.
It has been noticed that from the neighbourhood of the wood-cellar where she keeps all the paraphernalia of brushes and blacking, sounds of one of Moody and Sankey's hymns have been issuing, pitched in an unusually high key, and when, a little later, Becky places all the boots in a row at the foot of the stairs, saying with pride, "There, miss; I think I've made them look proper!" the girls feel that the joyful sounds are accounted for.
Indeed, as Honor, Molly, Dick, Daisy, and Bobby are all seated afterwards in the little village church, on a conspicuous bench without any front, and right under the reading-desk, the eyes of the eldest girl travel proudly down the row of neat-looking boots and shoes, till they reach Bobby's little high-lows, when her pride receives a sudden shock, for right across the left one she notices for the first time an ugly-looking crack, which will of a surety develop into a split in a day or two. It is to be feared that poor Honor's attention wanders from the sermon more than once that morning, her mind being harassed and distracted with the constantly recurring thought, that unless Bobby is to go almost barefoot he will certainly have to be re-shod before that week is out.