“Thank you, dear,” said mamma. “I don’t think you should go out till we see what the day is going to be. Your cold is not quite gone yet.”
“Oh, bother!” I said, crossly. “Mamma, I wish you would not fuss so. I’m sure that little girl looks far more delicate than I, and she’s out. I only wish I had gone out quite early, and then they wouldn’t have come in and found everything in such a mess.”
“I mind the most their seeing you yourself in such a mess,” said mamma, regretfully. “I don’t think you should do the flowers if it dirties you so.”
“Oh, I needn’t be so dirty,” I said. “But I didn’t mind that half as much as the drawing-room;” and then I had to explain how I had interfered with the housemaid.
“It can’t be helped,” mamma replied. “They are nice, kind people, I am sure, and the next time they come we must have things ready. Besides, such a large family as they are, they can’t be always in apple-pie order themselves. Connie,” she went on, “did you hear that dear child’s name?”
“Of course,” I said, rather sharply. “They call her Evey, but her name’s not ‘Eva,’ nor ‘Evelyn’—she told me so, and she was just going to tell me her real name, when Captain Whyte called to her. I daresay it’s some name not the least like ‘Eva.’”
“Oh,” said mamma, in a tone of disappointment, “I had hoped it was.”
In my heart I was sorry for her; how gentle and kind she was! And when I went upstairs to wash my hands, I had even more reason to think so, for when I looked in the glass—oh dear!—what an untidy, dirty little girl I saw! There was a smear of mould all down one cheek, some of which I had rubbed on to my nose, and my hair was straggling and my frock torn, as I have said. “I would have scolded my daughter dreadfully if I had been mamma,” I said to myself. And I got hot and red all over when I thought of my grand plans and pictures of my first meeting with our new friends.
My next meeting with them, though different from this first one, was also quite different from my fancies. We saw the Whytes in church on Sunday—not Mrs Whyte, she was not to come until Monday—but Captain Whyte and Evey and a big boy—quite big, looking almost grown up, and three small ones—dear little fellows in sailor-suits, all in a row, between Evey and the big brother. And they were so good! Evey herself was as neat as could be, and her jacket and hat were a very nice shape, and her hair prettily done. Altogether I began to be afraid the Whytes were not the sort of people I could at all “show off” to—(not that I called it “showing off” to myself). And after church I saw Lady Honor hurry up to them, and I felt she was asking them all to go home with her to luncheon. So I walked on rather gloomily beside mamma.