“But you never wear it—what’s the good of a thing you don’t wear?” contended Nellie, who had set her heart upon it. “If you think it’s too little, say two shillings and that light blue blouse of mine that you like.”
Meg put the blouse on mentally.
“Well, I like myself in pale blue,” she said; “yes, I’ll do that—only I hope it’s not torn or anything. Oh! and Nell, I think you might go and see if Poppet is in the garden; I’ve done ever so much to-day, and you’ve only been reading.”
But Nellie was comfortably in the hammock again among the cushions.
“Oh, Poppet never does anything I tell her,” she said; “you’d better get her yourself—all the children mind you more than me, you have so much more patience, Megsie.”
So it was Meg who had disturbed the important tête-à-tête between Bunty and his little sister; Meg who had separated them abruptly, almost unkindly, [41] ]at a crisis of great moment; and Meg who had seen the little girl actually into bed, and administered a dose of eucalyptus against the cough.
But it was also Meg who went down in the drawing-room presently, and played Mendelssohn’s tender, exquisite Love Song, and a rippling, laughing little bit of Grieg, and a Sonata of Beethoven’s, to a father half asleep on the sofa and a young man very wide awake on a neighbouring chair.
And it was Poppet who made hay, and crept along the passage in her little nightgown to the room where Bunty was sitting with his head on his arms and misery in his eyes.
And it was Poppet who, after torrents of abuse and vituperation from the unhappy lad, succeeded in extracting a promise that he should own up everything bravely in the morning, and not shirk his punishment whatever it was.