“Lilias excites herself so,” she said.
“I’ll ran after her, mother,” said Mary, quickly, and in another moment she was by her sister’s side. Lilias was still flushed and breathless to boot.
“Did you ever know such ill-mannered, rude—” she was beginning, but Mary interrupted her.
“They are just boys,” she said, philosophically. “But, Lilias, you have put yourself quite into a fever. Let me go and speak to these ladies—yes, do, I would rather—it is better for me than for you.”
“But why?” said Lilias, doubtfully, though visibly relaxing her speed.
Mary laughed.
“I can’t say exactly, but somehow it’s not dignified for you to go hurrying back in that sort of way, and for me—well, I don’t think it matters.”
Lilias still hesitated.
“It isn’t that,” she said; “I wouldn’t have you do anything I would not do myself, only—Mary, you will laugh at me—I do feel so shabbily dressed.”
Mary did not laugh. She looked at her sister with real sympathy and concern. There are some of the trials of poverty whose stings are even more acutely felt at three-and-twenty than at seventeen, and Mary pitied Lilias where she might have laughed at Alexa.