"Serve my Lady my grandmother," Frideswide whispered back.
"But that is—only—being useful," sobbed Dorathie, "and I—want to—be happy."
"Being useful is being happy," said her sister.
"I would being happy were being useful," was Dorathie's lugubrious answer. "They never go together—not with me."
"So do they alway with me," replied Frideswide.
"Oh, thou! Thou art a woman grown," said Dorathie with a pout.
"Right an old woman," said Frideswide with a sparkle of fun in her eyes, for she was not quite twenty. Dorathie was only eight, and in her estimation Frideswide had attained a venerable age. "But list, Doll! My Lady calleth thee."
Dorathie's sobs had attracted the notice of one of the four grown-up persons assembled round the fire. They were two ladies and two gentlemen, and the relations which they bore to Dorathie were father, mother, grandmother, and grand-uncle.
It was her grandmother who had called her—the handsome stately old lady who sat in a carved oak chair on the further side of the fire. Her hair was silvery white, but her eyes, though sunken, were lively, flashing dark eyes still.
Dorathie slipped down from the window-seat, crossed the large room, and stood before her grandmother with clasped hands and a deferential bob. She was not much afraid of a scolding, for she rarely had one from that quarter: still, in the days when girls were expected to be silent statues in the august presence of their elders, she might reasonably have feared for the result of her whispered colloquy with Frideswide.