“What was it? Do let us hear,” said Eileen.
“It was this: By his will, when you leave school and reach the age of eighteen, you are both entitled to one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and you are not to be coerced in the way you spend the money.”
“Hip! hip! hurrah!” cried Eileen. She sprang suddenly to her feet, danced a minute in front of her mother, and then clapped Marjorie on the shoulder.
“Then, of course, everything is plain,” she cried.
“We won’t spend any of that money on dress. Who would waste a precious hundred and fifty pounds in stupid things like frocks?”
“Well, children, I shall give you each a proper wardrobe to start with,” said Mrs. Chetwynd. “You have not brought anything fit to be seen from school. Those dresses you have on now are simply disgusting; they are not even clean. I have ordered the carriage, my dears, and am going to take you at once to Madame Coray’s. She will make you two or three everyday dresses and some evening ones.”
“But at least not with our money,” cried Marjorie; “that we cannot permit to be spent in such willful waste. Oh, mother, please, do allow us to dress as we like; do let us order our lives in our own way—do, mammy, do.”
“I must know first of all what is your own way.”
“We want to be useful members of society, and to spend scarcely any money on clothes. We have told you that we do not intend to be presented to Her Majesty.”
“Well, I hope to get you to change your minds yet; but I will not order the presentation dresses to-day.”