"Oh, you aren't turning me out," laughed Faith. "We have the old nursery for our room, it is so nice and large; there is heaps of room too for Joan's cot to stand beside my bed. I have cleared two shelves in the wardrobe by tipping everything out on to my bed. I must find somewhere to put it all before I go to bed, or I shall have to sleep on the floor—but we shall both settle down in time. Come and see mother, Audrey, she is longing to see you."
"How is she," asked Audrey, as they mounted the stairs together. "Is she really very ill?"
"No—not what you would call very ill. She was last year, and she will never be really well again unless she rests for a whole year."
"It's an awfully long time, isn't it?" said Audrey dejectedly. "When does it count from? From when she was so ill, or—or from when father wrote for me to come home?" She was already calculating in how many weeks time she would be able to get away, and back to Farbridge and granny.
Faith looked at her sister, her soft brown eyes full of mild surprise.
"Oh, I don't know. I don't suppose Dr. Gray can tell to a few weeks, or even months. A lot depends on how quiet she keeps. He said that perhaps by next spring or summer she would be quite well again, and able to go about."
"Oh!" Audrey's face fell, but before she could say anything more, Faith opened a door and in another moment Audrey was in her mother's arms.
"Oh, my dear, my dear, I am so glad to see you. I hardly realised what a great big daughter I possessed. How you have grown, Audrey, and how nice you look, darling. You are going to be tall, like your father, and you have his features." Audrey's face brightened, fond as she was of her mother, it was her father she wished to resemble. Faith had her mother's short tip-tilted nose and big brown eyes, and Audrey had many times envied her the latter, but if she herself had her father's straight nose and aristocratic features, she felt she would not grudge Faith her pretty eyes. Faith was short too—as her mother was—a soft, sweet dumpling of a girl. Audrey admired tall people.
She glanced about her mother's room interestedly and with a happier face. Here, at any rate, all was comfortable and orderly. The litter that lay about was the litter of books and papers, which was what Audrey liked. Perhaps things would not, after all, be as bad as at first they seemed.
"I expect, dear, you would like to take off your hat and coat and have some tea. You must be tired and hungry." Mrs. Carlyle loosened her arm from round her daughter, but reluctantly. "Well," she said, looking after her as she left the room with Faith; "you have your father's features, but you have my mane, I see. Shocking, isn't it, to have six red-headed people in one house!"