"Law, Essie, ain't you changed, and for the worse, I take it!" remarked Cherry. "I liked you a sight better when you were flighty and frivolous. Do you remember the night you went to the theatre with that Captain something or other? My word, wasn't uncle in a taking. 'Twas I found your tickets, and put uncle up to getting a seat near you. Weren't you struck all of a heap when you found him there? I never heard how you took it."
"Hush," said Esther, rising to her feet, her face growing very white. "I was mad, then, but I was saved. That's enough about it. Cherry, you know the box-room?"
"Yes," said Cherry. "It's stuffed pretty well, too. Mostly with your trunks, what you say belonged to your mother."
"So they did. Well, they must go downstairs."
"Wherever to? There isn't a corner for them in this scrap of a house."
"Corners must be found. Some of the trunks can go in our bedroom—some into father's; some into the passage, some into the drawing-room if necessary. You needn't stare, it has got to be done."
Esther stamped her foot and looked so imperious that Cherry shrank away.
"I suppose you're a bit mad again," she muttered, and she began to collect the breakfast things on a tray.
"Stop, Cherry, we may as well talk this out. I'll go upstairs now and help you with the boxes. Then we'll clean out the attic; if I had time I'd paper it, but there ain't. Then I'm going out to buy a bedstead and bedding, and a table and washhand stand. The attic is to be made into a bedroom for——"