For once the girl's bright face clouded, and she felt as though she would like to kick the pampered beasts. She ventured to break off a piece of the thin bread and butter, and try to coax one of the cats to eat it while her mother was sobbing. But the cat sniffed disdainfully at it, and then uttered a plaintive mew to attract her mistress's attention.
"What are you doing to the poor thing?" said Mrs. Murray, removing the pocket-handkerchief from her face. "Take the tray away," she repeated, "I do not want anything now."
"Oh, Mamma, do try to eat something!" said Molly pleadingly. "Annie will be so upset if I take the tray down,—and—and there are other things to worry about besides cats," blurted out Molly.
"Then you and Annie must manage it between you, for I cannot bear any more trouble;" and the invalid turned her head on her silk pillow and subsided into gentle sobs.
Molly did not move the tray, but sat down beside her mother, and tried to soothe her much as she would a sick child. But she could not coax her to have any tea, and when she heard Arthur's footstep approaching, she took up the tray and hurried out to meet him, fur fear he should say anything that would disturb her mother still more.
"I was just coming to see what was the matter," he said, taking the tray from her hands. "What is it?" he asked, seeing the tea and bread and butter had scarcely been touched.
"Oh, nothing much! Only Mamma is not quite well, and I am afraid we shall not be able to tell her your news to-night."
Molly took care not to give her brother the chance of going into the room to say a word about it, but she and Annie tried all their powers of persuasion to induce him to tell Mr. Brading that he could not accept the situation, as his friends did not think it good enough for the son of a county gentleman.
Arthur listened to all the arguments they brought forward with as much patience as he could muster. But at last he said, "Look here, if you were a boy like me, and not a couple of girls brought up in cotton-wool, for fear you should hear a word of the truth about things, you would know that the Murrays, if they are a county family, have been going downhill for years and years. People say that Papa ought to have given up the old house long before he did,—and—and—"
But there Arthur stopped, for he had resolved that neither mother nor sisters should hear the hard words that had been said, if he could prevent it, and so he sat silent for a minute, while Molly shed a few quiet tears over what she deemed her brother's obstinacy and general wrongheadedness.