They had some idea of staying up in their rooms till the dinner-bell rang; they did not feel in the mood to meet people and be asked questions about what they had been doing. But they had neither fires nor candles; they were cold and uncomfortable; and Murtagh soon remarked that he thought it was awful stuff staying up there in the cold.
"What's the good of it? We've often been in a row before, and, after all, people can't guess just by looking at us that we know where Theresa is."
"All right then," said Rosie; "let's go down. But don't let us seem to be cold or anything. Let's look as if nothing had happened." And she ran down-stairs as she spoke, gaily talking and laughing.
The other two children admired her plan, but they did not second it, and it was a very cold, hungry, dispirited-looking set of little people, who in another minute stood outside the schoolroom door.
"I hope the fire's not out," said Murtagh, as he groped for the handle.
He opened the door as he spoke, and disclosed to the children's somewhat astonished eyes a schoolroom looking so different from their ordinary place of refuge that it was hardly to be recognized. Not only was a bright fire blazing in the grate, but the whole room was in perfect order. The crimson window-curtains were drawn, the tea-table was decorated with a bouquet of fresh flowers; the books had got into the bookcases; the music into the music-stand; the more comfortable and respectable of the arm-chairs were disposed within reach of the fire; the brown moreen sofa had been dragged from its corner to occupy the place of honor at one end of the hearth-rug; and Nessa herself, in her pretty evening dress, was sitting on the sofa reading.
An undefined sensation of comfort crept over the children, but with it the elder ones had an unpleasant consciousness that somehow their wildness seemed suddenly out of place. They didn't feel quite as if they were in their own schoolroom, and they hesitated an instant in the doorway, wondering half-uncomfortably what Nessa would say to them. They were very quickly at their ease, however, for she looked up brightly as they entered, and exclaimed:
"Oh, there you are! I am so glad. I was expecting the dinner-bell to ring every minute, and I wanted to be here when you arrived. What do you think of it? Peggy and I have been working the whole afternoon."
"Awfully jolly!" said Murtagh, taking up a position on the hearth-rug, and surveying the room with a satisfied expression.
"How pretty you have made it look!" said Rosie. "What did you do to it?"