A Family Party.
A hearty but somewhat unnecessarily noisy welcome awaited them. Arthur, Ted, and Noble were all in the drawing-room with their mother. She had insisted on the muddy boots being discarded, but beyond this, as the boys were tired, and it was late when they came in, she had not held out; and Charlotte glanced at the rough coats and lounging-about attitudes with a feeling of annoyance, which it was well “the boys” did not see. “Mamma” herself was always a pleasant object to look upon, even in her old black grenadine; she, thought Charlotte, with a throb of pride, could not seem out of place in the most beautiful of the Silverthorns’ drawing-rooms. But the boys—how can they be so rough and messy? thought the fastidious little sister.
“It is all with being poor—all,” she said to herself.
But she felt ashamed when Arthur drew forward the most comfortable chair for her to the fire, and Ted offered to carry her hat and jacket up-stairs for her.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll run up-stairs, and be down again in a minute. It’s messy to take one’s things off in the drawing-room,” and so saying, she jumped up and ran away.
“What a fuss Charlotte always makes about being messy, as she calls it,” said Ted. “She’s a regular old maid.”
“Come, Ted, that’s not fair. It’s not only for herself Charlotte’s tidy!” Arthur exclaimed.
“No, indeed,” said Noble, chiming in.
“You needn’t all set upon me like that,” said Ted. “I’m sure I always thank her when she tidies my things. I can’t be tidy, and that’s just all about it. When a fellow’s grinding at lessons from Monday morning till Saturday night.”
This piteous statement was received with a shout of laughter, Ted’s “lessons” being a proverb in the house, as it was well known that they received but the tag end of the attention naturally required for football, and cricket, and swimming, and stamp-collecting, and carpentering, and all his other multifarious occupations.