"That is more than enough!" sobbed Grace, as with Margaret clinging to her she rushed to her own room, and the sisters sobbed out their misery in each other's arms.
But crying would not help them; they resolved to leave the house, to go far from this, where they did not exactly know; they did not know any one except their school-mistress, and having left her with flying colours it seemed terrible to them to have to go back and face the wonder and the pity they would meet with.
They were both so young and so inexperienced. They sat thinking, not wholly miserable now because they were conscious of a sort of excitement and they were together.
Grace at that moment could not help thinking what a small beginning generally leads to large conclusions—this beginning had been so very, very trifling.
She had been walking up and down one day to obtain the amount of exercise she conceived necessary to her well-being, the day had been damp and she kept to the gravel in front of the house.
Jean, who was at the open window, to use her own expression, trying to get strong, was talking in her rich guttural voice to Mrs. Dorriman, who was in the room, though out of sight, and was watching her.
Conscious of observation—though only the observation of an old woman—Grace, who was proud of her way of moving, stepped forwards and backwards with still more daintiness than usual. She heard Jean say—
"What gars Miss Rivers walk yon way, hippity hop from ane side till another?"
And then in a moment she answered her own question—
"Ou, aye, the gravel's hard; and she'll have corns."