'I've none to spoil.'
'Oh, yes, you have, Dora—that's so silly of you. You aren't sallow a bit. It's pretty to be pale like that. Lots of people say so—not quite so pale as you are sometimes, perhaps—but I know why that is,' said Lucy, with a half-malicious emphasis.
A slight pink rose in Dora's cheeks, but she bent over her frame and said nothing.
'Does your clergyman tell you to fast in Lent, Dora—who tells you?'
'The Church!' replied Dora, scandalised and looking up with bright eyes. 'I wish you understood things a little more, Lucy.'
'I can't,' said Lucy, with a pettish sigh, 'and I don't care twopence!'
She threw herself back in her rickety chair. Her arm dropped over the side, and she lay staring at the ceiling. Dora went on with her work in silence for a minute, and then looked up to see a tear dropping from Lucy's cheek on to the horsehair covering of the chair.
'Lucy, what is the matter?—I knew there was something wrong!'
Lucy sat up and groped energetically for her handkerchief.
'You wouldn't care,' she said, her lips quivering—'nobody cares!'