"Well, I'd manage it somehow if Arthur had to come home to his dinner," protested Molly.
"Well, I am glad I'm not at Hannah's tender mercies now, as I was when I went to school. But I should like some pudding for supper; we don't get pudding every day, and I miss that. So you might make me a pudding sometimes, Molly, or save me a piece from dinner to be warmed up in the oven. It won't matter so much what time that is ready, as I have only to go to bed afterwards."
"But it does matter," said Molly quickly. "I told Hannah to-day that she must have the supper ready for us at nine o'clock, or else it is late before you can get to bed, and I was reading in a book—"
But Arthur would not listen to what she had read.
And Annie laughed and said, "Listen to the old lady!"
"Never mind, Molly," said Arthur. "'Life is real, life is earnest', and we are beginning to find it out, you and I. We can't all indulge in Persian cats and—"
"Don't, Arthur," said his elder sister reprovingly. "You forget Mamma is an invalid, and can only interest herself in small things. Go up and see her now before Hannah serves her dinner." For the patient always insisted upon a hot dinner being carried to her room at eight o'clock.
"Have you told her that I have got a post yet?" asked Arthur.
"No, I have not had an opportunity," replied Annie, with something like a sigh, as she recalled the several efforts she had made to introduce the matter, and how each time, as if guessing that her daughter wished to say something that might prove unpleasant, Mrs. Murray had lifted up her hand as to ward off a blow, and had said plaintively:
"Don't tell me anything that isn't nice to-day, for my nerves are so shaken I could not bear it."