“Rubbish! nonsense!” cried Betty, “as if Eira and I would have let you go alone. I do believe in my heart that we’re both quite as strong as you, though you won’t allow it. Poor little Eira, she would have come too, except for her chilblains. It is unlucky that she has got them so early this year. And they spoil her pretty hands so.”
“It’s only from the unusual cold,” said Frances, “and—” she hesitated. “I am sure I could cure them,” she resumed, “if I had my own way, or if I had had it when you were both growing up. What makes me really stronger is, I am sure, that I had so much better a time as a child than either of you, before papa gave up his appointment and we were better off.”
“I wish you’d leave off repeating that old story,” said Betty. “After all, I’m not four years younger than you, and whatever Eira and I have not had, we’ve had you, darling—a second mother as people say, a great, great deal better than a second mother I say, and oh joy! here we are at last; I see the white gate-posts.” And in another moment they were plodding the short, badly kept gravel path, not to be dignified by the name of a drive, which led to their own door.
“Take care of the big puddle just in front of the steps; it must be a perfect lake to-night,” Betty was saying, when, before they had quite reached it, the door was cautiously opened, and a girl’s face peered out, illumined by the light, faint though it was, of the small hall behind her. It was Eira, the third and youngest of the Morion sisters.
“It’s you at last,” she said in a low voice; “come in quickly, and I’ll take the medicine to papa, he’s been fussing like a—I don’t know what, and if he gets hold of you he’ll keep you waiting in your soaking things for half-an-hour while he goes on about your having been so long! Now go straight upstairs,” she continued, when she had got her sisters inside, and extricated them from their dripping umbrellas and waterproofs. “I’ll see to these things as soon as I’ve been to papa. Go straight up to your room, Frances; there’s a surprise for you there. Go up quickly and keep the door closed till I come.”
She took the parcel from her elder sister’s hands as she spoke, and, without wasting time in more words, gave her a gentle little push toward the staircase. Frances and Betty went up softly, but as quickly as their feet, tired and stiffened with cold and wet, would allow. The staircase, like everything in the house, was meagre and dingy, the steps steep and the balusters rickety. At the top a little landing gave access to the best rooms, and a long narrow passage at one side led to the sisters’ own quarters.
Betty ran on in front and threw open the door of her elder sister’s room eagerly. She had hard work to repress an exclamation of delight at what met her eyes. It was a fair-sized, bare-looking room, though scrupulously neat and not without some simple and tasteful attempts at ornamentation, and to-night it really looked more attractive than was often the case, for a bright glowing fire sent out its pleasant rays of welcome, and on a little table beside it stood, neatly arranged, everything requisite for a good, hot cup of tea.
“How angelic of Eira!” exclaimed Betty. “How has she managed it? Just when I was planning how I could possibly get you a fire, Francie.”
The eldest sister sat down with a smile of satisfaction in front of the warm blaze.
“Run into your own room, Betty, and take off your wet things as quickly as possible, and then come back here for tea. We have still over an hour till dinner-time.”