Here she paused.
"Well," said Cherry, "for whom, in the name of goodness?"
Esther gulped something down in her throat.
"There's a good man in the East of London, a very good man; he has no money, and he's starving, and he has to sleep out of doors; and—and—I can't stand it, Cherry—and I spoke to father, and we have agreed that he shall have the attic and his food. That's it, his name is Brother Jerome; he's a sort of an angel for goodness."
"Slums again," said Cherry; "I'll have nothing to do with it."
She took up her tray and marched into the kitchen. Esther waited a minute or two, then she went to her room, put on a coarse check apron, and mounted the narrow attic stairs. She commenced pulling the trunks about; she could not lift them alone, but she intended to push them to the head of the stairs and then shove them down.
Presently a thumping step was heard, and Cherry's round face appeared.
"Disgusting job, I call it," she said; "but if I must help you, I suppose I must. I was going to learn 'Lord Tom Noddy' this morning. I thought I might wear the pink gauze with yellow bows, and recite it at Uncle Dan's Christmas party. Cousin Tom says I'm real dramatic when I'm excited, and that's a beautiful piece, so rhythmic and flowing. But then we all have to bend to you, Esther, and if I must help you I suppose I must."
"I think you had better, dear, and some day perhaps you won't be sorry. He's a good man, Brother Jerome is, he won't be no trouble. I'll clean his room for him myself once it's put in order, and he's sure to go out early in the morning. He'll breakfast upstairs, and I'll take him his breakfast, and his supper shall be ready for him here at night. We must see if that chimney will draw, Cherry, for of course he'll want his bit of fire."
After this the two girls worked with a will; they cleaned and polished the tiny window, they scrubbed the floor and brushed down the walls, and polished the little grate. Then Esther went out and made her purchases. The greater part of a five pound note was expended, and by the afternoon Gerald Wyndham's room was ready for him.