Chrissie’s whole life had always been so different from the rest of them, and her room seemed to convey this more plainly than words.
The furniture was luxurious, the decorations charming, and a whole regiment of pretty and costly things were scattered about.
Christina, fortunately for herself, had been her grandmother’s godchild, and money had never been denied her.
There was some feeling, Polly did not know what it was, between her mother and her father’s mother; old Mrs. Pennington had never been kind or amiable to her son’s wife, she kept all her kindness for Christina.
It was no easy task to gather together all the things Chrissie had enumerated, but Polly did it, eventually.
Her back ached, and her hair was rumpled, and she had torn her dress when Winifred came up from dinner.
“Father is furious because you did not come down,” said Winnie, looking round Christina’s dismantled room with a curious expression; then she laughed. “Well, what have you to say to your angel now, I should like to know?” she inquired. “Nice, kind, sweet nature, hasn’t she, to turn her back on her family at a moment’s notice?”
“You do talk such stuff and nonsense,” Polly observed, sharply. She was hungry, and Winifred had had her dinner. “As if Christina had gone away for good!”
Winifred laughed again.
“As if she ever intended to come back here again! Father says he will go down to-morrow and talk to her. He may as well save himself a journey. Chrissie is not easily moved. She is gone, and I,” said Winifred neatly, “consider she was quite right to go!”