"I am afraid, without what you call interference, I cannot do my duty," said Mrs. Dorriman, quietly, but with a flush of colour in her pale face that rose and died away again immediately. "What do you do in the mornings? We do not know each other, my dear Grace; we are to live together; will it not be for our mutual comfort and happiness if we agree to try and like each other?"
Grace was a little moved by this appeal, but she was unused to be put in the wrong and could not accept the situation gracefully.
"There is nothing but that horrid old piano with jingling keys. I cannot play upon it, or I should play to you."
Mrs. Dorriman went towards it, opened it, and struck a few chords; they responded with harsh discords. She let the lid down with a little sigh, music was to her a second nature.
"No, you cannot play upon that," she said, "but books. What books have you both read? Do you like reading?"
Grace and Margaret looked at each other. A few pages of history each, read as a task; a few biographies of excellent people as Sunday reading; a few poetical extracts learned by heart: this was the sum total of their knowledge—all else in their empty minds a barren waste.
"If you will help me to unpack my books, we may perhaps find something we might like to read together," said Mrs. Dorriman; "and if you would like to prove to my brother that you are industrious," she added, laughing a little, "we can easily get some wool and produce a stocking."
Margaret looked a little eagerly at her sister; she was just at the age when she missed the regularity of the school life, and when time hung heavily upon her hands. The new feeling of interest and occupation held out by Mrs. Dorriman was very pleasant and gave her the first home-feeling she had in that house.
But a glance at Grace again threw her back, and she said with some hesitation that it would be nice to unpack the books, and appealed to Grace for some sign of consent.
Grace, however, was in no mood to be pleased with any suggestion of poor Mrs. Dorriman's, and, muttering something about having something to do in her own room, she went off alone there, in stately silence and a very bad temper.