“I did wash them—at least I think I did, after I got out of my bath,” Chrissie replied. “They can’t have been very bad or Dads would have noticed them.”
“I am quite sure he did, but we did not want another breakfast upset by you children, like yesterday,” said Mrs Fortescue. “Go now and do as I have told you,” and Chrissie went off, pretending to whistle. “Leila,” she continued, “what are you intending to do this morning?”
“Mayn’t I have my book back?” asked Leila, “I did get up early.”
“It is in the drawing-room,” her mother replied. “Yes, you may have it, but in the first place I want you and Chrissie to help a little in the house. I am thinking of leaving the dusting of the drawing-room every morning to you, if you will be very careful with the ornaments. Harriet sweeps and brushes and does the fire of course, early, but the dusting takes time, and she is very busy in the mornings.” Leila stared.
“Us dust—like housemaids,” she said, and a sharp pang of disappointment went through her mother, for she had really expected that the little girls would have felt interest, and even pride, in taking upon them the charge she proposed—a far from difficult or disagreeable one.
Leila, not observing her mother’s change of expression, went on coolly.
“What’s the hurry with the drawing-room?” she said. “The fire’s not to be lighted first thing, I suppose. Harriet can surely dust it before the middle of the day.”
“No,” replied Mrs Fortescue, “I do not think she can. Certainly she could not do it properly. At your age I should have been very proud of being trusted with a little work of the kind; besides—”
“I daresay, Mummy, you were an angelic child, and certainly neither Chrissie nor I pretend to be anything of the sort; it seems to me that fathers and mothers always were pieces of perfection by what one hears them say of themselves.”
Her words were almost impertinent, but her tone sounded as if she were half in fun, so her mother took no notice of the interruption: “besides,” she went on, “the drawing-room from now must be ready early for Aunt Margaret. She must have all the comfort we can give her.”