Chapter Eight.
Speculations.
“Well!” exclaimed Ruth, sinking back in armchair number one, at the right of the bedroom fireplace.
“Well!” exclaimed Mollie, sinking back in armchair number two, facing her sister. “Likewise, good sooth! By my halidom! Gadzooks! Of a surety these are great happenings, fair sis!”
“Don’t be so tiresome, Mollie! You make a joke out of everything. I want to talk over the position seriously.”
“So do I—just dying to. Go on! Where shall we begin?”
“With the time, of course. Three months! I never dreamt of more than a fortnight, at most. Do you think we can possibly be spared?”
“I don’t think at all—I know! If it was three years, with such an interest at stake, the poor little mother would jump at it. Three months soon pass, and there will be two people less to feed and wait upon, and a room less to keep in order. Every little tells when people are as hard up as we are, and with the savings mother will be able to pay Miss Carter to help with the mending. It will be good for Trix, too. The more you depend upon Trix the more she rises to the occasion. I have a shrewd suspicion that she is going to cut us out, and be the show daughter of the family. Mother will be blissfully happy building castles in the air; Trix will be blissfully happy playing eldest daughter, and bossing the family. We shall be blissfully happy not pretending, but actually being, Berengaria and Lucille. It’s all quite smooth and easy!”