Poor dears, how they must have wanted it after all they had been through! I can see them lying there....
(Excision by censor and pencil note in the margin of the manuscript: "John Carey, you liar, don't obtrude yourself and your sickly sentiments.")
It was about six when Doris and Marjorie awoke. They came out of the bedroom into the sitting-room adjoining. A bright fire burnt upon the hearth with that clear redness which indicates a dry and frosty night. On a little table there was an equipage of tea, and a copper kettle sang gently.
These two girls were essentially healthy and plucky. The semi-imprisoned life they had led at Morstone House School had broken nothing of their spirit. The death—the righteous execution—of the man who had hurried their mother into her grave affected them not at all. They were too brave and fine to affect an emotion that they did not, could not, feel. All that had happened in the large, L-shaped house was hideous and horrible, yet not to be overmuch remembered or deplored.
They had another subject of discussion, these two beautiful sisters.
"Doris, it was desperate from the first."
"Yes, it was, Marjorie."
"Then, do you think——?"
"That they will come out all right, you mean?"