'It was sewing,' sighed Floss; 'how would you like to sew? I know you'd go and hide behind the shed.'
The front horseman turned his head. 'It's time you did learn, Floss,' he said; 'look at my stockings, I'm sick of having holes in them. Look at my trousers.'
'I heard Miss Browne telling you to leave them for her to mend,' said Floss.
'No, thanks,' said Bart; 'I know her mending too jolly well. She'd patch it with stuff that 'ud show a mile off.'
'Yes, look at my elbows,' Roly said; and though the positions forbade this, a mental picture of the clumsy mending with stuff worlds too new rose up before the eyes of his brother and sister.
Floss was dressed with curious inequality; she wore heavy country shoes and stockings, like the rest of the children at that public school, and her bonnet was of calico and most primitive manufacture, but her frock was exquisite—a little Paris-made garment of fine cashmere, beautifully embroidered.
'I wish some more of Challis's frocks would come,' she sighed; 'this one's so hot. I wish mamma would make her always wear thin things.'
'Why, she'd be shivering,' said Roly.
'Think how cold it is in Paris and those places!'
'Think how hot it is here!' sighed Floss and mopped at her streaming little face with her disengaged hand.