So here and there the garden showed cleared and scarred patches where the children had 'worked,' which meant that they had begun to 'tidy' by pulling up everything that grew, after which they would scrape the bed over with a rake and replace in a prim row as many of the plants as they could get in, and a day or two later the eye would be caught by a square of brown earth, broken by a row of sorry-looking dead or dying plants standing conspicuous and solitary against the wild, untrained vegetation round about, while a later search would perhaps reveal, under the tangled litter in the path, one of the best dinner-knives, covered with rust, and other lost treasures, such as a trowel, scissors, and occasionally a silver fork.
To Esther these attempts were merely depressing and irritating; they seemed only to emphasise their helplessness, and the uselessness of trying to make things better.
"Nothing is right here, somehow," she complained to Penelope now, "neither the house, nor the garden, nor ourselves. Look at us!" throwing out her hands dramatically. "We aren't educated, or dressed properly, or—or anything. Look at that," stretching out her foot, and eyeing disdainfully the clumsy shoe which disfigured it. "We aren't fit to go anywhere, and we can't ask any one here because the house is never fit to be seen, or the meals, or—"
"Never mind," said Penelope placidly. She was used to Esther's outbursts, but, though quite unable to sympathise, she was ready with attempts at comfort. "You don't want to know any one but ourselves, do you? I don't."
"No-o," admitted Esther. "But we ought to. It—well, it is always supposed to be right. We shall grow up like savages, Aunt Julia says, and not be fit to talk to any one or go anywhere, and we shan't have any friends; and every one ought to make nice friends; it looks so bad if one has none—"
"Miss Esther! Miss Esther!" called a sharp voice from the kitchen door. "You must all come in at once. Your ma wants you immejutly—all of you."
Esther rose, a little anxious pucker gathering on her brow as she remembered the Canadian letter.
"Come along, Pen," she said impatiently. "I wonder what it is. Bad news from father, I expect."
"P'r'aps it's good news," said Penelope hopefully, rising with a sigh of regret at having to leave her nest and the sunshine and the butterflies. Somehow, though, she did not really expect any such thing. "P'r'aps we are to go, at last. Oh," with sudden excitement, "wouldn't it be perfectly lovely! Oh, Essie, wouldn't it be splendid! Do let's run in and see if that is what it is mother wants us for."