Commonplace.
“Really, Amethyst, I don’t see how I am to manage, if we pay many more visits. You see, all my things were got for the season, and I haven’t got an autumn gown or jacket that’s fit to be seen; and I can’t go to a hunt-breakfast in a summer hat, and just look at this one.”
The speaker was Una Haredale, one lovely autumn day in late October, as she stood by the wardrobe in her bedroom in Mrs Lorrimore’s country house, and displayed its contents ruefully to her sister.
The view from the window had all the charm of exquisite rural peace. The woods in every tint of gold and russet stretched away over wide outspreading country beyond the green slopes of the park where single trees blazed and shone in their autumn dresses; cattle and sheep dotted the grass between and beneath them. Restharrow, as the house was called, looked the very home of quiet and virtuous content. But the house-party who were staying with Mrs Lorrimore contrived to amuse themselves, and Restharrow was not regarded as a quiet house.
“Well, Una, I don’t know what is to be done. I haven’t an idea how long my lady means to leave us here, and stay at the Fitzpatricks’. I’ve got exactly seven and sixpence left, and if mother sends us more money—she must, of course, before we go away—heaven knows where she will get it from. You must wear my grey hat and jacket to-morrow, and your own red skirt.”
“And you?”
“I’ll do with the brown tweed. Who is there to see that matters?”
“How I hate this house!” said Una, dropping into a straw chair by the window, and stretching her arms above her head.
“I don’t think its as bad as the Fitzpatricks’.”
“Perhaps not, when the card-playing set is there, but it’s more rowdy. I never did see the fun of chasing men up and down stairs, and setting booby-traps in their bedrooms.”