Yet it was home, and Salome felt by force of contrast homeless and sad. The boys were going to see a cricket match, and Digby wanted Reginald to come with them.
"I shall not have time, thank you. We ought to be going back now, Salome."
But Kate overruled this, and Reginald was obliged to consent, and went off with his cousins till four o'clock, when he was to return to pick up his sister and take her to Elm Fields before going to the station.
"We will have a cozy talk in the school-room, and I will get Aunt Betha to let us have some tea. The children are all going out, and mamma and Louise will not be back yet, so we shall have peace." Kate said this as, with her arm in Salome's, she led the way to the school-room,—a very bare, untidy room in the wing built out at the back of the house, and over Dr. Wilton's consulting-room. Two battered leather chairs, which had seen years of service, were on either side of the fireplace; and there was a long bookcase, taking up the wall on one side, where school books for every age and degree were arranged in brown paper covers. A writing-desk standing on the table, with a cover over it, and an inkstand with pen and pencil, all belonging to Miss Scott, the daily governess, was the only really tidy spot in the whole room. The walls were covered with maps and pictures cut from the Illustrated News—two or three of these in frames—conspicuous amongst them the familiar child in the big sun bonnet tying up her stocking on the way to school, and another sitting on a snowy slope, apparently in a most uncomfortable position, but smiling nevertheless serenely on the world generally.
"This is our school-room, and I am glad I have nearly done with it. That cracked piano is enough to drive one wild. It is good enough for the 'little ones' to drum on. Do you care for music?"
"Yes, I care for it, but I don't play much. Ada plays beautifully."
"Ada is very pretty, isn't she? I remember one of you was very pretty."
"Yes, Ada is thought lovely. She is not in the least like me."
"Well, I hope we shall be good friends. I am sorry you are out in that poky part of Roxburgh; but Digby and I shall come very often, and you must come here whenever you can."
"It is so odd," Kate went on, "that only a year ago we used to call you our grand relations, who were too stuck-up to care for us—"