Chapter Four.
A Piece of Looking-Glass.
“Such a joke, Jill! The sun is shining, and the Pet is sitting reading, in the drawing-room window, and I’ve found a broken piece of looking-glass in the street.—There’s luck! Let’s hide behind the curtains and flash it in her eyes!”
Jill’s book fell down with a crash, and she leapt to her feet, abeam with anticipation. It was Saturday, and she had announced her intention of “stewing hard” all the afternoon, but the claims of examinations sank into the background before the thrilling prospect held out by her twin.
“Break it in two! Fair does, Jack! Give me a bit, and let us flash in turns!” she cried eagerly; but Jack would not consent to anything so rash.
“How can I divide it, silly?” he replied. “I haven’t a diamond to cut it, and if I crunch it with my foot it may all go to smithereens, and there will be nothing left. I’ll lend it to you for a bit now and then, but you won’t aim straight. Girls never do!”
“I do! I do!” Jill maintained loudly. “I will! I will! Come along, be quick! She might move away, and it would be such a sell. I’ll kneel down here and keep the curtains round me. I wonder what she’s reading. Something awfully dry and proper, I expect! What heaps of hair! It hangs over her face, so that we shan’t be able to dazzle her a bit.”
“Yes, we will,” contradicted Jack. “She’ll see the light dancing about on the page, and look up to see what’s the matter! You watch, but mind you don’t bob up your head and let her see you!”
“Mind you don’t let her see your hand! It’s sticking right out. You ought to put on a dark glove, which she wouldn’t notice against the pane.”
Jack was pleased to approve of the glove proposition, and an adjournment was made to the doctor’s dressing-room, where a pair of ‘funeral gloves’ were discovered which seemed exactly what was desired. Jack drew one on his right hand, Jill drew the other on her left, and thus equipped they crept back to their hiding-place behind the shabby red curtains, and proceeded to work.