“Never,” said Mrs Aldworth.
“Indeed you will. And anyhow we ought to have the drawing room pretty now that Molly and Ethel are out—or consider themselves so. And, mother, dear,”—Marcia’s voice assumed a new and serious tone—“I have so much to talk to you about the dear girls.”
Mrs Aldworth trembled. Now, indeed, was the moment when she ought to begin, but somehow, try as she would, she found it impossible to be cross with Marcia. Still, the memory of Molly and her wrongs, of Nesta, and the burden she was unexpectedly forced to carry, of Ethel, and her tendency to sunstroke, came over her.
“Before you say anything, I must be frank,” she said.
“Oh, yes, mother; that’s what I should like, and expect,” said Marcia, not losing any of her cheerfulness, but laying down her work and preparing herself to listen.
She did not stare as her young sisters would have done, for she knew that Mrs Aldworth hated being stared at. She only glanced now and then, and her look was full of sympathy, and there was not a trace of anger on her face.
“You really are very nice, Marcia; there’s no denying it. I do wish that in some ways—not perhaps in looks, but in some ways, that my girls were more like you. But, dear, this is it—are you not a little hard on them? They’re so young.”
“So young?” said Marcia. “Molly is eighteen. She is only two years younger than I am.”
“But you will be twenty-one in three months’ time.”
“I think, mother, if you compare birthdays, you will find that Molly will be nineteen in four months’ time. There is little more than two years between us.”