Mrs. Conway’s head was too bad for her to fully enjoy the absurdity of the serious-eyed children at the time, though she often smiled over it in later years.
“You can put the books all back,” she said; “if fifty more wills were discovered there would be no more money, dear ones, for the simple reason there was nothing to leave.”
They went back to the nursery, sadness in their eyes at this summary wrecking of all the romantic castles they had built.
[81]
]CHAPTER VIII
THE PITILESS LONDON STREETS
Unbolstered in such ways of hope, their thoughts flew to wild extremes; Phyl was ill again, and was confined to bed; the harsh biting winters always caught at her poor little chest, and four or five times from November to March they were obliged to keep her a week or more safely amongst the blankets. Dolly was of course always her faithful companion and slave at such times, and the days never dragged; if those two had been set down on a desert island for a year, their quaint resources and strange imaginings would have filled every day to the brim with action and enjoyment.
And this time they had a limitless subject for discussion.
They had climbed up their own particular beanstalk of imagination, and peeped into the land of poverty wherein soon their feet were to walk.
Dolly went about as much as she could, unobserved, without her boots.
[82]
]“They’ll wear out quickly enough twamping about the stweets,” she said. “I’ll take good care of them now.”
Weenie slipped hers off. “Le’s take our stockings off too, Dolly,” she said, “then they won’t get worned out.”