“You poor child,” said her elder sister. “But those slippers are a comfort to you, I hope.”
“My dearest Frances,” Eira replied, “but for them I really don’t think I should be alive at the present moment. But I must pay you for them with the first money I can lay hands on. You don’t suppose I didn’t notice your shabby gloves last Sunday?”
“Oh, what does it matter in winter?” said Frances indifferently. “One can always use a muff.”
“When you’ve got one to use,” said Eira. “Mine looks more fit to be a mouse’s nest than anything else.”
Betty had been standing at the window, gazing out at the oval grass plot, not imposing enough to be dignified by the name of lawn, and at the shrubberies enclosing it.
“Do you see those berries?” she said, wheeling round as she spoke. “If only all the bushes were not so dreadfully wet still, I could make up some lovely bunches and trails for the drawing-room vases, if mamma would let me.”
“It will be dry enough by the afternoon,” said Frances, “or we may find some treasures on our way through the grounds, without having to paddle over wet grass to reach them.”
“The best plan,” said Eira, “is to arrange the vases first, and then let mamma see the effect. It doesn’t do to ask leave beforehand, for if we do we are sure to be told not to fill the house with rubbish and weeds. Bring in the prettiest things you can find, Betty, and we’ll do them after luncheon. It will help to pass the afternoon for poor me. Oh dear! things are never so bad but they might be worse. I’m beginning to feel now as if life would be worth having if only I could go a good long walk! And before my chilblains got bad, I didn’t think anything could be duller or drearier than the way we were going on.”
“We’ll try to bring you in some lovely berries and tinted leaves to cheer you,” said Frances, but Betty’s next remark did not follow up her elder sister’s determined effort to make the best of things.
“What’s the good?” she said lugubriously, “what’s the good of trying to make the drawing-room look better? It’s hopelessly ugly, and even if we could make it pretty, who would care? There’s nobody to see it.”