To this pertinent question her sister could find no adequate reply. After a pause she rose and said—
“Let us go upstairs, and hear what she is saying to mother.”
Mrs. Gordon was sitting up in bed with a flushed face and anxious expression, listening to the brilliant description of Fairy’s future career in India.
Fairy, with both elbows on the bed, and her pointed chin in her hands, was rapidly enumerating her new dresses, and wondering how soon they would be ready, declaring how fortunate it was that she had a quantity of patterns in the house, and that if her mother would only advance twenty pounds she could do wonders. She talked so incessantly, and so volubly, that no one had a chance of advising, objecting, or putting in one single word. Her mother and sisters listened in enforced, uneasy silence, to the torrent of this little creature’s almost impassioned eloquence.
“It will take a fortnight to get ready,” she said. “This is the fifteenth of March; what a scurry there will be! You two girls will have to sew your fingers to the bone—won’t they, mother?”
Her mother faltered a feeble assent.
“I shall want at least twelve gowns and half a dozen hats. I must go into Hastings to-morrow.” She paused at last, with scarlet cheeks, and quite breathless.
“There is nearly a week before the mail goes out,” ventured Jessie; “and it is rather too soon to decide yet. The letter only came an hour ago, and there is much to be considered, before mother can make up her mind as to which of us she can spare, and——”
“The whole thing is quite settled,” interrupted Fairy in her sharpest key—Jessie was not her favourite sister—“only you are always so fond of interfering and managing every one, from mother down. Aunt Sara expressly asked for the pretty one; you saw it in black and white, and mother says I am to please myself—did you not, mother?” appealing to her parent, whose eyes sank guiltily before the reproachful gaze of her eldest daughter. Nevertheless she bravely sighed out—
“Yes, Fairy, I suppose so.”