“Leila and Chrissie, I have helped you to dress this morning because I could not bear to have another scene, especially as it is Sunday. But from now, I warn you, I cannot and will not do for you what you are perfectly able to do for yourselves. When you do need help, you shall have it, and I can make allowance for things being difficult for you just now, but I will not help you to make them more difficult for yourselves. When you come in from church, you must put away your out-of-doors things and make the room perfectly neat,” and so saying, she left them, without giving them time to reply.
“I hope you’re pleased,” said Christabel to her sister, as soon as the door had closed. “You know it all began with your refusing to get up.”
Leila did not answer. She was naturally more timid and less high-spirited than Christabel, but in some ways more difficult to manage, owing to her indolence and dreaminess.
“Oh, well,” continued Chrissie, “if you like to be sulky I’m sure I don’t mind. Any way, it is a satisfaction to learn that you won’t have any story-book all to-day.”
Her tone was most provoking; Leila would have liked to turn upon her, but she was afraid of beginning to cry, so with some difficulty she remained silent till Chrissie had flung out of the room.
“I wish they would let me go to school,” she said to herself when she was alone. “I don’t mind lessons, I only want to be left in peace. I’m sure they might find some cheap school, and when I’m old enough I’d ask to be kept on as a governess. I will ask Mummy about it. If Roland’s the eldest boy, I’m the eldest girl, and if they pay hundreds of pounds for him to go to Winton, they might pay something for me.”
The idea seized her fancy. There was a touch of “romance” about it. She pictured herself working hard at school, becoming a teacher herself at an extraordinarily early age, earning enough to be no longer a burden on her unnatural family, whom she would only visit at rare intervals and for a very short time.
“Perhaps they would begin to wish they had treated me differently,” she thought. “Perhaps even Chrissie would find out that everything wrong was not my fault—yes, when it was too late,” and with her usual habit of fanciful dreaming, she occupied her thoughts almost the whole of church-time, I fear, by picturing herself as the heroine of this touching and romantic story. And poor Mrs Fortescue, catching sight of her little daughter’s charming face, her dark eyes gleaming with interest, said to herself that Leila was really very open to good impressions. “I am sure she is making all sorts of excellent resolutions. Poor dear, I must not be hard upon her, nor upon Chrissie either,” though Christabel’s face still looked resentful and obstinate.