"Yes; brush your teeth, dears, and your hair," supplemented the other tormentor. "Don't go out looking like a pair of rabbits plucked out of a dust barrel."
"Rabbits! Dust barrels!" snorted the girls, shaking their hair, each strong in the consciousness of annihilating beauty. Afterwards Haidee said with a superior smile to Kitty:
"Poor things! It must be awful to be old."
"Yes," said Kitty, who was sniffing a good deal. "They 're mad with jealousy. That's why I don't take any notice of all Mother's blither." She added thoughtfully: "I hope she doesn't find out I 've got a cold, before to-morrow morning. She 's such a fuss pot."
"Let's go to bed early, then she won't," suggested Haidee. And they went, and rose early too. Usually it was the work of two persons to pick them out of their blankets, but they were up at five, pinking and preening before the mirror, with many a glance from the window to see why the river was n't filling. The tide, it seemed, was unaccountably delayed that morning!
Val, who always rose at seven to make tea on her spirit lamp, took the usual cup to Harriott's bedside, and found Kitty there by special command. She was vehemently denying that she had a cold.
"I hawed god wud, buther, I ted you."
"Kitty, how can you say so? You can't speak properly. All traffic in your nose is absolutely suspended."
"It tiddent, buther!"
"You are snorting and snuffling like the bull of Bashan."