'They'd be much more comfortable down here by the fire, I should think, than in their cold rooms,' observed Vava.
'Perhaps they have gone to bed,' said Stella.
Vava listened for a moment. 'No, they haven't; I can hear them moving above us, and—they have a fire in Amy's room; I can hear them poking it! What extravagance!' she continued.
Stella was privately of the same opinion, and she wondered at the housekeeper encouraging it. Moreover, it meant more work; but she would not criticise their house-mates any more, and changed the conversation. Soon after, Vava set to work at her books, reading over the term's work for the examination on the following day, and Stella decided to go up and see if Amy had caught a chill, or had any such reason for staying upstairs, or whether it was only laziness.
There was dead silence when she knocked at the door, and then a murmured conversation before Amy unlocked the door, and said, 'Come in, Stella. Eva has a headache, so Mrs. Morrison very kindly insisted on her lying down on my bed and having a fire.'
It did occur to Stella as strange that Eva should lie upon Amy's bed and have the fire in her room; but as Eva had her back turned to her she thought the kindest thing she could do would be to leave her alone, so she said, 'I am so sorry Eva is ill. Mrs. Morrison did not tell me that, or I would not have come and disturbed you.'
'I'm not ill.—You'd better tell her about it, Amy; she'll have to know sooner or later,' said Eva from the bed in a muffled voice.
Stella looked with concern from one to the other. 'I hope there is nothing wrong?' she asked.
Amy made a sign to her to come out of the room, and they went downstairs to the little sitting-room before the former said anything, and even when they were sitting down in the two easy-chairs, which the good old housekeeper had drawn up to the fire, she did not seem inclined to begin.
At last Stella said, 'Tell me what is wrong, Amy—a trouble shared is a trouble halved. I suppose it has something to do with that wretched furniture?'