"You'll spoil it if you do," said Prothero.
"Besides spoiling everybody's day," said Jane judiciously.
That brought Laura round. She reflected that, if she sat tight from ten that evening till two in the morning, she could save their day.
But first she had to finish her paragraph and then to hide it and lock it up. Then she put the pens and ink on a high shelf out of Mr. Gunning's reach. He had been known to make away with the materials of Lolly's detestable occupation when he got the chance. He attributed to it that mysterious, irritating semblance of poverty in which they moved.
He smiled at her, a happy, innocent smile.
"That's right, that's right. Put it away, my dear, put it away."
"Yes, Papa," said Laura. She took the blouse from Addy Ranger, and she and Jane Holland disappeared with it into a small inner room. From the voices that came to him Prothero gathered that Jane Holland was "buttoning her up the back."
"Don't say," cried Laura, "that it won't meet!"
"Meet? It'll go twice round you. You don't eat enough."
Silence.