“All right. I won’t tell you the words he said, how he put it about the difficulty of getting the money for my things.”
“Don’t, Mim.”
Miriam’s mind went back to the phrase and her mother’s agonised face. She felt utterly desolate in the warm room.
“I wish I’d got brains,” chirped Harriett, poking the fire with the toe of her boot.
“So you have—more than me.”
“Oh—reely.”
“You know, I know girls, that things are as absolutely ghastly this time as they can possibly be and that something must be done.... But you know it’s perfectly fearful to face that old school when it comes to the point.”
“Oh, my dear, it’ll be lovely,” said Eve; “all new and jolly, and think how you will enjoy those lectures, you’ll simply love them.”
“It’s all very well to say that. You know you’d feel ill with fright.”
“It’ll be all right—for you—once you’re there.”