Mrs. Wise said the amendment was necessary. “They drag their characters to table with them sometimes, Clif,” she said, “and I eat my tomato-toast or scrambled egg to the accompaniment of a discussion as to whether chloral would kill instantly and painlessly; or if snake poison, injected hypodermically, would be a surer and swifter death.”
“Poor old mother!” Clif said. “There you are, Phyllida, my Phyllida,—one and six to the good. It’s always the way, Mater; she has the right change every time, but how she gets it beats me.”
Phyl thankfully put all her papers and boxes away. “My beautiful youth,” she said, “this is nothing to the elaborate system we used to pursue when we were small. Do you remember, mother, when you first gave [290] ]us an allowance of two shillings a week each, and we had to buy all our little things out of it?”
“I do,” said Mrs. Wise, and ran a tuck with smiling recollection. “How many match-boxes used you to have each?”
“Seven, I think,” said Phyl thoughtfully. “Let me see: there were gloves, handkerchiefs, stockings, hair-ribbons, charity, pocket-money, and books. We used to apportion our income into twopences and fourpences, with the exception of hair-ribbons, for which we only laid aside one penny a week. Gloves were half-a-crown for best ones and a shilling for school ones, and, oh dear! how long it took to accumulate enough in twopences to buy a pair! We should have considered it a reckless and dishonest proceeding to apply stocking-money to glove purposes; and as to buying a hair-ribbon with the twopences that were lying waiting a charity call—why, we would almost as soon have stolen the money from your purse, mother.”
Mrs. Wise was regarding her daughter critically. “I think some money needs stealing from my purse at present,” she said. “Are you bankrupt, Phyl, that you are wearing that old blue serge this afternoon?”
Phyl coloured a little.
“It really takes too long to be always changing your dress,” she said; “once a day is quite enough, I think, unless one is going out. Anything more is vanity.”
Mrs. Wise’s eyes were still busy. Phyl’s collar was [291] ]almost carefully awry; her hair, upon which she usually bestowed a good deal of attention, was done up in any fashion. The mother remembered too seeing Dolly go out also in her plain morning frock, and without any of the little prettinesses of which both girls were so fond.
Phyl coloured again under the quiet scrutiny. “Well, really, mother, it’s all very well for girls who have nothing else to do to make themselves look nice,” she said, “but it is too much waste of time when one has work to do.”