"Mamma," said Emmeline, walking first into the drawing-room, "Lady Clara has come back with us after all, and is going to stay here to-night; we are so glad."
Lady Fitzgerald got up from her sofa, and welcomed her young guest with a kiss.
"It is very good of you to come," she said; "very good indeed. You won't find it dull, I hope, because I know you are thinking about the same thing as these children."
Lady Clara muttered some sort of indistinct little protest as to the impossibility of being dull with her present friends.
"Oh, she's as full of corn meal and pints of soup as any one," said Emmeline; "and knows exactly how much turf it takes to boil fifteen stone of pudding; don't you, Clara? But come up-stairs, for we haven't long, and I know you are frozen. You must dress with us, dear; for there will be no fire in your own room, as we didn't expect you."
"I wish we could get them to like it," said Clara, standing with one foot on the fender, in the middle of the process of dressing, so as to warm her toes; and her friend Emmeline was standing by her, with her arm round her waist.
"I don't think we shall ever do that," said Mary, who was sitting at the glass brushing her hair; "it's so cold, and heavy, and uncomfortable when they get it."
"You see," said Emmeline, "though they did only have potatoes before, they always had them quite warm; and though a dinner of potatoes seems very poor, they did have it altogether, in their own houses, you know; and I think the very cooking it was some comfort to them."
"And I suppose they couldn't be taught to cook this themselves, so as to make it comfortable in their own cabins?" said Clara, despondingly.
"Herbert says it's impossible," said Mary.