“There’s time enough,” said Maudie. “You can lead up to it when you go in, because, you know, Ju, if they ever do find out—”
“Yes, there will be the devil to pay,” put in Julia. “You are quite right.”
It was astonishing how sweet a morsel the phrase seemed to be to the child.
“You’ll get saying it to Miss Drummond,” said Maudie, warningly.
“Well, if I do,” retorted Julia, “I shall have had the pleasure of saying it—that will be something.”
Now this was but one of many similar instances which occurred during the childhood of Regina’s two girls. They were so sharp—at least Julia was—and as she was devoted to Maudie, she always put her wits at the service of her sister, and the other children whom they knew not unnaturally resented the fact that they were invariably to be found in the wrong box in any discussion in which the Whittaker children had a share. So they became more and more isolated as the years went by.
“Why don’t we like the Whittakers?” said a girl to her mother, who had met Mrs. Whittaker and thought her a very remarkable woman. “Well, because we don’t.”
“Yes, but why?”
“Oh, well, we don’t exactly know why—but we don’t. They’re queer.”