“I don’t think we can do this one,” Dolly faltered, cold thrills running through her at the remembrance that it was through this door they had gone, slowly, and on tip-toe, two months ago, to kiss that cold, quiet face on the pillow, and lay white roses and snowdrops on the still breast.
Phyl’s eyes were drenched with tears at the same memory, and her sensitive lips all a-quiver. But she turned the handle with a firm hand and they went in.
Through the windows a cold spring wind was blowing, it was the only thing of life in the quiet room. The bed was covered as of old with the blue silk eiderdown quilt; the book-table, that had always been disorderly with books and magazines and papers, was quite bare; the great cushioned chair stretched out its empty arms as if bemoaning its vacancy.
Dolly sobbed aloud and ran to a big bookcase that had been brought here during the last long illness. Phyl, her tears falling like rain, followed. They began at one end, and taking down the books, [76] ]one after the other, opened the covers, looked in them carefully, and then, holding them by their backs, shook them gently. They put the finished ones on the floor in stacks. Soon there were piles of them everywhere, big dusty books long unopened, hard-worked volumes with their covers dropping off, gaily bound new ones, dull thick ones with scientific names; the stacks were three feet high in places, the atmosphere was full of dust, but the sorrowful-faced, earnest-eyed little girls worked on steadily with never a moment’s rest.
Then there came Weenie in search of them—Weenie, round-eyed, open-mouthed at the terrible sacrilege in this quiet, strange room where her father had lain dead.
“Oh!” she gasped.
“Go away,” said Dolly.
“G—go away at once,” said Phyl; “[we’re not playing,] Weenie.”
Weenie could see they were not; at all events it must be a very strange game if they were, for their eyes still streamed.
She ran away, right down the passage to their own room where the mother lay asleep.