“You must please yourself. Now go to bed, all of you.”
The girls left the little sitting-room. It was their fashion to hold each other’s hands, and in a chain of three they now entered the kitchen.
“Jean,” said Betty, “he says we are to go to bed. I want to ask you and Donald a question, and I want to ask it quickly.”
“And what is the question, my puir bit lassie?” asked Jean Macfarlane.
“It is this,” said Betty—“you and Donald can answer it quickly—if we want to come back here you will take us in, won’t you?”
“Take you in, my bonny dears! Need you ask? There’s a shelter always for the bit lassies under this roof,” said Donald Macfarlane.
“Thanks, Donald,” said Betty. “And thank you, Jean,” she added. “Come, girls, let’s go to bed.”
The girls went up to the small room in the roof which they occupied. They slept in three tiny beds side by side. The beds were under the sloping roof, and the air of the room was cold. But Betty, Sylvia, and Hetty were accustomed to cold, and did not mind it. The three little beds touched each other, and the three girls quickly undressed and got between the coarse sheets. Betty, as the privileged one, was in the middle. And now a cold little hand was stretched out from the left bed towards her, and a cold little hand from the right bed did ditto.
“Betty,” said Sylvia in a choking voice, “you will keep us up? You are the brave one.”
“Except when I cry,” said Betty.