“Well—I must go back to father. Look after the fire, darling, if you are going to stay here. It is getting low, and you must not catch cold.”
She bent as she passed to kiss the unresponsive lips, and walked from the room carrying a heavy heart in her breast. “If she had only spoken! If she had even looked up and smiled!” Such was the wounded mother cry; and all the time Rowena’s heart was speeding unspoken messages after her as she went.
“Mother! I’m sorry. You are so sweet, and I am a wretch! I will try! I’ll try my best!”
Alas! the ears of sense could not catch the message, and so the opportunity passed, and left both hearts aching and oppressed.
Chapter Six.
“What’s ‘rejuiced’?” queried Maud, squeezing herself into the central place on the big fender, as her brothers and sisters sat roasting chestnuts by the schoolroom fire one wet afternoon a few days later, and the question being received by a blank stare of bewilderment she repeated the word with intensified emphasis. “Re-juiced! We’re rejuiced! I heard Mary say so in the schoolroom. She said to nurse that she didn’t know if the missis would be wanting to keep on two housemaids now she was re-juiced! Does it mean poor?”
“You have no business to listen to servants’ conversation; but if you do, pray spare us the repetition!” said Rowena in her most grown-up manner. Maud reflected that ever since mother had spoken of the new arrangement about lessons, Ro had talked exactly like a governess, and been just as snappy as snappy. She bounced on her seat, and wagged her head in the obstinate manner which she adopted upon provocation.
“I don’t listen, but I have ears, and if people speak I am obliged to hear. Mary came into the room to dust. Nurse was darning the tablecloth. It’s all gone into holes where Gurth spilt the chemical acid. It’s the one with the little shamrocks for a pattern. So Nurse said: ‘Drat those boys!’ and licked the cotton with her tongue, and—”