look at her darlings asleep. She did so, opening the door of Marjorie’s room first. Marjorie was in bed, curled up as her fashion was, with the bedclothes tucked tightly round her. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and the long black lashes looked particularly handsome as they lay against her rosy cheeks. But what a condition the room was in! What was the good of a maid when girls went to bed in such a state of untidiness? Clothes tossed helter-skelter everywhere; one little shoe near the fireplace, one near the wardrobe; petticoats flopped on the nearest chair; the shabby serge dress, which Mrs. Chetwynd considered only to be fit for the next bag sent from the Kilburn Society, hanging on the brass knob of the bed.
Marjorie sighed in her sleep, and Mrs. Chetwynd bent over her.
“Dear, lovely child, I surely shall be able to mold her to my wishes,” she thought; never considering that Marjorie’s chin, with its cleft in the middle, was full of obstinacy, and that her lips were as firm as they were beautiful.
Mrs. Chetwynd went on to the next room. Eileen was also sound asleep, and her room was also untidy. The girl looked lovely, with her classical features and the long straight lashes lying upon the soft rounded cheeks. Yes, they were both singularly handsome girls, and very like one another. Of course they would do splendidly yet. Perhaps the world would appreciate them all the more for their little eccentricities. They must appear as débutantes at the very first drawing-room. Yes, to-morrow at an early hour, Madame Coray should put their presentation dresses in hand.
Mrs. Chetwynd hesitated a moment before she went into Letitia’s room. It would not be very interesting to look
at Letitia asleep; but still, what she did for her own girls she invariably did for her husband’s niece.
Letitia’s room was in exquisite and perfect order, everything put neatly away, and Letitia herself lying in her little white bed with her arms folded across her chest and her hair swept back from her pretty brow. Mrs. Chetwynd could not help feeling drawn to her. She bent and kissed her on her forehead. She had not dared to do this to her own girls, fearing to awaken them.
She then went back to her room, to sleep as best she could.
[CHAPTER V—THE MODERN VIEW OF LIFE.]
The girls came home on Wednesday, and on the following Saturday Mrs. Acheson and Belle were coming to tea. In the meantime Mrs. Chetwynd had gone through more than one stormy scene with Marjorie and Eileen. The girls positively declined to be presented to her gracious Majesty.