“Very well indeed,” answered Maria. “Quite well.”
The door had been opened, and they were then crossing the hall. Maria turned into the dining-room, and Margery continued her way upstairs, grumbling as she did so. To believe that Harriet, or any one else, herself excepted, could do “Quite well” by Meta, was a stretch of credulity utterly inadmissible to Margery’s biased mind. In the nursery sat Harriet, a damsel in a smart cap with flying pink ribbons.
“What, is it you?” was her welcome to Margery. “We thought you had taken up your abode yonder for good.”
“Did you?” said Margery. “What else did you think?”
“And your sister, poor dear!” continued Harriet, passing over the retort, and speaking sympathizingly, for she generally found it to her interest to keep friends with Margery. “Has she got well?”
“As well as she ever will be, I suppose,” was Margery’s crusty answer.
She sat down, untied her bonnet and threw it off, and unpinned her shawl. Harriet snuffed the candle and resumed her work, which appeared to be sewing tapes on a pinafore of Meta’s.
“Has she torn ’em off again?” asked Margery, her eyes following the progress of the needle.
“She’s always tearing ’em off,” responded Harriet, biting the end of her thread.
“And how’s things going on here?” demanded Margery, her voice assuming a confidential tone, as she drew her chair nearer to Harriet’s. “The Bank’s not opened again, I find, for I asked so much at the station.”