“Please, sir—no, sir, if Ned was at school, Comfort and me would be at school too,” said Janie.
And Comfort, hearing the talking, came up to where they were standing. They were all in the lane just outside the little garden.
“Ned’s run in just to get a bit of cord,” said the elder girl. “We’re goin’ a walk in the woods. We must take the little ones, ’cos mother’s washing’s got late this week, and she wants them out of the way.”
It was rather curious that Mrs Perry’s washing often did get late. She was a kind, good-natured woman, but “folks said,” according to nurse, not the best of good managers.
“What’s Ned going to do with the cord?” asked Leigh, Artie and Mary standing by, listening with the greatest interest, and holding each other’s hands tightly, as they felt just a little shy.
“Oh, it’s a notion of Ned’s,” said Janie, rather scornfully. “It’s just his nonsense: he don’t like pushing p’ram, ’cos he says it’s girls’ work, and Comfort don’t hold with pushing it neither, ’cos she wants to be reading her book.”
Here Comfort broke in.
“’Tisn’t that I’m so taken up with my book,” she said,—“leastways not to please myself; but I want to get moved up after next holidays. When I’m big enough I’m to be a pupil teacher.”
“That would be very nice,” said Leigh. “And then, when you’re quite big, you’ll get to be a schoolmistress, I suppose.”
Comfort murmured something and got very red. To be a schoolmistress was the greatest wish she had.