Nature, even, seemed maliciously inclined just now to make things worse for them. No winter sprightliness came to relieve the autumn gloom which, in this country, we have come to look upon as more or less inevitable. It was the dullest of dull weather; the very thought of Christmas seemed out of place.
“It is as if the sun had really said ‘good-bye’ to us for ever,” remarked Betty one day. “I am growing so stupefied that I think the only living creatures I now envy are dormice. Don’t you think, Eira, that Providence, if that isn’t irreverent, might have arranged for human beings to have a good long sleep of several months together, if, or when, they have absolutely nothing to do which it would in the least matter to themselves or any one else if they left undone?”
Eira’s only answer was a sigh, and even Frances, from the low chair where, for once in a way, she was sitting idle, said nothing. For poor Frances’ spirits were, at the present moment, really depressed by physical causes; she had had a wretched cold, which, though not very severe, had been sufficiently so to lower her vitality uncomfortably and disturb her usually well-balanced mental and moral condition.
She glanced at the window.
“Who would think it was Christmas week?” she said. “Actually, it comes next Friday, and this is Tuesday.”
“I had almost forgotten it,” said Eira. “What about those little things, Frances, that you said you had still to get in the village? Cards, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Frances replied, “and one or two trifles; literal trifles they’ll have to be this year, for the servants and our two or three poor people. Which of you will come with me this afternoon to help me to choose them?”
Eira looked at her doubtfully.
“Are you sure, Francie dear,” she said, “that you are fit to go out to-day? Your cold has pulled you down so.”
“Oh, it’s over now,” said Frances. “A walk will do me good. Are you coming too, Betty?”