Dreda beamed with delight. Here was appreciation! No sign of superiority, no condescension from a young lady in long frocks and done-up hair towards a schoolgirl fledgling, but an open avowal of need, an invitation to a heart-to-heart talk on a basis of affectionate equality. She clasped her hands together in the intensity of her delight, and hitched her chair nearer her sister.
“Yes, yes, let’s talk, let’s—let’s grumble! We’re both in the dumps, and it’s so cheering to grumble and get it off your mind. Go on, you’re the eldest—you’ve the first turn. Is it Maud?”
“Oh, Maud! Maud is enough to drive anyone crazy; but she’s only a part.”
“What’s the rest?”
Rowena leant her head on her hand and stared out of the window. The garden was dank and deserted, the country beyond showed no sign of habitation; the wind moaned among the tall, bare trees.
“Dreda,” she asked unexpectedly, “am I pretty?”
Dreda’s grey eyes widened with surprise.
“What in the world has that to do with it?” she asked curiously. “Pretty? Yes, of course. Awfully, when you’re in a good temper. We all are. It’s in the family. Do you know what Susan calls us?—the youngest Currant Bun, you know—‘The Story-Book Saxons.’ Isn’t it a jolly name? Because, she says, we look as if things would happen to us like they do to people in a book.”
“Well, they don’t to me, anyway. That’s just it! What’s the use of being pretty if one is buried alive? Think of it, Dreda! nothing has happened all these six long weeks, except old ladies coming to call, and going to tea with mother at the vicarage. I should think there never was such a dull place. We didn’t notice before, because it was holiday time, and the house was full, but it’s awful for a permanency. The nearest interesting girl lives four miles off, the others are too boring for words. I asked one of them if there were ever any dances, and she laughed and asked whom we should dance with. There are only three young men within a radius of miles. There might perhaps be a Hunt Ball at C— next autumn. ... And I thought I should have a London season!”
Dreda meditated, hunched up in her chair, her chin resting upon her hand. For the moment the scarcity of dances did not affect herself, but she loyally endeavoured to regard the situation from her sister’s point of view.