"Will you help me to get mother's dinner ready, Patty?"
"Yes. What shall I do?"
"Find me a little tray; and, Patty, have you any serviettes?"
"Yes, there are some in a drawer upstairs; I'll get one."
Patty was only too delighted to help, and when Mrs. Holtby's dinner was ready, carried the tray with great glee up to the sick room.
Mr. Holtby looked round with satisfaction as he took his place at the head of the table, but he said nothing. He was a most silent man, and Marjorie found that his words of commendation were at all times few and far between.
That afternoon Mrs. Holtby insisted on Marjorie's going out for an hour or two, that she might get some fresh air after her hard work. She proposed taking the twins with her, but their mother said that the roads were too wet for their thin shoes, and that they would be quite happy playing in her room; so she set out alone, not sorry to feel free for a little time.
So far Marjorie had seen practically nothing of Daisy Bank, for it was too dark the night before for her to do more than see the dim outline of what she passed, and from the windows of Colwyn House there was merely a narrow view, shut in by houses on either side. She had not expected to see much to charm her during her walk, but she was hardly prepared for the scene of utter desolation that met her eyes as she went down the muddy lane leading from the house.
On one side of it were a few tumble-down cottages, damp and discoloured; on the other was an open waste, strewn with the remains of old furnace heaps. She looked across this wilderness to the huge pit mounds, rising in all directions, the very picture of gloom and dreariness.
Finding that the lane was still impassable from the depth of mud, she turned upon the waste common, parts of which were covered with thin, smoke-begrimed grass. Here there stood two old houses, even more wretched and forlorn than those she had already passed. The bedroom window of one was partly blocked with wood, and the room was given up to pigeons, which flew in and out at pleasure. The door of the other house was open, and she saw a cock and a hen and three fat ducks walking about as if the whole place belonged to them.