“Hold your tongue,” said Reginald fiercely, “if we are to hear what my father says at second hand through an imp like you—”
“Oh, yes,” said Janey, mocking, “that is because you are not friends with papa.”
“Janey, come and help me to take off my things,” said Ursula, seeing that Reginald would probably proceed to strong measures and box his sister's ears. “If you were older, you would not talk like that,” she said, with dignity, as they went upstairs. “Oh, dear Janey, you can't think how different Cousin Anne and Sophy are, who are not girls, like us. They never talk unkindly of other people. You would get to think it childish, as I do, if you had been living with Cousin Anne.”
“Stuff!” said Janey. “Papa is not childish, I hope. And it was he who said all that. I don't care what your fine Cousin Anne does.”
Notwithstanding, the reproof thus administered went to Janey's heart; for to a girl of fifteen, whose next sister is almost twenty, the reproach of being childish is worse than any other. She blushed fiery-red, and though she scoffed, was moved. Besides, though it suited her to quote him for the moment, she was very far from putting any unbounded faith in papa.
“Just wait a moment! See what Cousin Anne, whom you think so little of, has sent you,” said Ursula, sitting down on the floor with the great parcel in her lap, carefully undoing the knots; for she had read Miss Edgeworth's stories in her youth, and would not have cut the strings for the world; and when the new dresses, in all their gloss and softness, were spread out upon the old carpet, which scarcely retained one trace of colour, Janey was struck dumb.
“Is that,” she said, faltering and conscience-stricken, “for me?”
“This is for you; though you think them old maids—and that they will never get husbands,” said Ursula, indignantly. “What a thing for a girl to say! And, indeed, I don't think Cousin Anne will ever get a husband. There is not one in the world half good enough for her—not one! Yes, this is for you. They went themselves, and looked over half the things in the shop before they could get one to please them. They did not say, 'Janey is an unkind little thing, that will repeat all she hears about us, and does not care for us a bit.' They said, 'Ursula, we must choose frocks for Janey and Amy. Come and help us to get what they will like best.'”
Janey's lips quivered, and two very big tears came into her eyes. She was stricken with the deepest compunction, but her pride did not permit her to give in all at once.
“I dare say you told her how badly off we were,” she said.