“Amy and Robin have gone out to tea—they didn't want to go; but papa insisted. Oh, he is very well on the whole. And Reginald is at home, of course, but I thought you would like me best. Johnnie came to carry the bag,” said Janey with a natural contempt for her younger brother. “What a big parcel! You must have been getting quantities of presents, or else you must have packed very badly, for I am sure there was lots of room in the trunk when you went away.”
“Oh, Janey, if you only knew what I have got there!”
“What?” said Janey, with quiet but composed interest. It never occurred to her that she could have any individual concern in the contents of the parcels. She was a tall girl who had outgrown all her frocks, or rather did outgrow them periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders, which would not curl or crêper, or do anything that hair ought to do. She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts of impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the kind of angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, but very maladroit, who is a greater nuisance to herself and everybody else than even a school-boy, which is saying a good deal. Things broke in her hands as they never broke in anybody else's; stuffs tore, furniture fell to the ground as she passed by. Ursula carefully kept her off the parcel and gave it to Johnnie. One of the railway porters, when all the rest of the passengers were disposed of, condescended to carry her trunk, and thus they set out on their way home. The parsonage was close to St. Roque, at the other end of Grange Lane. They had to walk all the way down that genteel and quiet suburban road, by the garden walls over which, at this season, no scent of flowers came, or blossomed branches hung forth. There were red holly-berries visible, and upon one mossy old tree a gray bunch of mistletoe could be seen on the other side of the street. But how quiet it was! They scarcely met a dozen people between the station and St. Roque.
“Oh, Janey, is everybody dead?” said Ursula. “How dull it is! You should see London——”
“Ursula,” said Janey firmly, “once for all, I am not going to stand this London! A nasty, smoky, muddy place, no more like Carlingford than—I am like you. You forget I have been in London; you are not speaking to ignorant ears,” said Janey, drawing herself up, “and your letters were quite bad enough. You are not going to talk of nothing but your disagreeable London here. Talk to people who have never seen it!” said the girl, elevating her shoulders with the contempt of knowledge.
“That time you were at the dentist's—” said Ursula, “and call that seeing London! Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy took me everywhere. We went to drive in the Park. We went to the Museum and the National Gallery. And, oh! Janey, listen! we went to the theatre: think of that!”
“Well, I should like to go to the theatre,” said Janey, with a sigh. “But you told me in your letter. That's what comes of being the eldest. Unless you get married, or something, nobody will ever think of taking me.”
“You are five years younger than I am,” said Ursula, with dignity. “Naturally, people don't think of a girl at your age. You must wait till you are older, as I have had to do. Janey! guess what is in that?”
“Your new dress—your ball-dress. If it isn't crumpled as you said, you can't have danced very much. I know my dress will be in tatters if I ever go to a ball.”
“I danced as much as I wished. I did not know many people,” said Ursula, drawing herself up. “Of course at this time of the year nobody is in town, and we hardly knew any one—and of course—”