Mrs. Skinner turned away, and then the door was shut with a sharp bang, and the two girls were left outside.
"I don't think I'll come in, Bet," little Miss Joy said; "for your grandmother does not like me—she looks so cross."
"She always looks like that," Bertha said; and then she added, "Every one but you is cross to me; you are always kind. Oh, I do love you!"
Then Bet's cheeks, after making this declaration, were suffused with blushes, which made her poor sallow face a dark purplish-red.
"Do come in a moment—do," she said.
The two girls went in at the back door, and along a narrow stone passage.
The door on the right was open, and Bet said, in a low whisper—
"There's Uncle Joe's room. There's where he sits at night, and I hear people coming in, 'cause my window is one in the lean-to."
Uncle Joe's proceedings had not much interest for Joy, and she just looked round the room standing on the threshold, and said—
"What a big table for such a wee little room, covered with green cloth, and what funny little boxes! They are like the big hour-glass in Uncle Bobo's glass case. It's not a pretty room at all," she said decidedly. "Come away, Bet."