“Oh,” she said in a most poignant tone of grief, “they can’t go on having expewiences when it’s snowing, Phyl.”
Where the cabbages ended a row of rhubarb-plants divided the vegetables from the gooseberry-bushes. Beyond these was a rough bank covered with prickly bush, and beyond that again was a wild heap of quarried stone left from some repairing that had recently been done to the house.
“[There they are,]” Phyl said in a tremulous voice.
On the roughest ledge of stone, exposed to all the wind and weather, lay two dolls. The little girls’ hands went to them, never a moment confused as to [18] ]which belonged to which, and drew them with passionate thankfulness into the eider-down shelter.
“Suey’s soaking,” said Phyl, bitter reproach in her voice.
“Jennie’s dying, I think,” said Dorothy, with a great sob.
They wound the cumbersome quilt round the four of them and scuttled back to the house. Up-stairs again they crept, their boots in their hands, and their frozen feet bare to the bitter cold that crept about the floors. But how happy were their hearts now their darlings were safe in their arms!
“I think I’ll just light the candle,” Phyl said, “we can’t see how they look in the dark.”
She struck a match very very softly, and the pale light illuminated the room.
Dorothy was stripping off Jennie’s dripping frock as she sat on the edge of the bed. “We’ll have to wrap them in towels,” she said, “their night-gowns are in the nursery.”