"Do you hear? The majority have decided on silence," said Sylvia triumphantly, as she sat down by the side of Nealie, and slipped her arm round her sister's waist.
"Oh, I don't know what to do, and it was dreadful of Rumple to forget!" cried Nealie, and at the reproach in her words Rumple fairly doubled up, muttering, in a resigned fashion:
"Lay it on, and spare not. There is one comfort about the beastly business, you cannot blame me more than I blame myself."
"It might have been worse," said Sylvia, who always championed Rumple through thick and thin. "And of course no one expects quite so much from a poet as from a more ordinary person. People with teeming ideas are always rather absent-minded I find; it is one of the penalties of the artistic temperament. I suffer from it myself, and Rumple is far cleverer than I am."
"I don't know about that; you have got the colour sense, even though you don't seem to get the hang of perspective," said Rumple, looking visibly cheered. "When I begin to sell my poems you shall have the money to have lessons in art, old girl, for I fancy you are worth developing."
"I hope I am," rejoined Sylvia, tossing her head with a saucy air. "But I am afraid that the process will be rather delayed if it has to wait until your poetry brings the money for doing it, for everyone says that there is no money in poetry. Now, Nealie, darling, do cheer up and be happy; poor Rumple will have no peace at all while you look like that."
"I will try; but you must give me time. But I am so disappointed, for I had hoped that Father would be at Sydney to meet us," answered Nealie, with a sigh.