'I can't help it, Cardie; I have so much to do, and there seems no time for things.'
'I should say not, to judge by this,' interposed Roy, wickedly, executing a pirouette round his sister's chair, to bring a large hole in his sock to view. 'Positively the only pair in my drawers. It is too hard, isn't it, Dick?'
But Richard's disgust was evidently too great for words, and the unbecoming flush deepened on Olive's sallow cheeks.
'I was working up to twelve o'clock at night,' she said, looking ready to cry, and appealing to her silent accuser. 'Don't laugh, Chriss, you were asleep; how could you know?'
'Were you mending this?' asked her brother gravely, holding up a breadth of torn crape for her inspection, fastened by pins, and already woefully frayed out.
'I had no time,' still defending herself heavily, but without temper. 'Please leave it alone, Cardie, you are making it worse. I had Chriss's frock to do; and I was hunting for your things, but I could not find them.'
'I dare say not. I dare not trust myself to your tender mercies. I took a carpet bagful down to old Margaret. If Rex took my advice, he would do the same.'
'No, no, I will do his to-day. I will indeed, Rex. I am so sorry about it. Chriss ought to help me, but she never does, and she tears her things so dreadfully,' finished Olive, reproachfully.
'What can you expect from a contradicting baby,' returned Roy, with another pull at the ill-kempt locks as he passed. Chriss gave him a vixenish look, but her aunt's presence proved a restraining influence. Evidently Chriss was not a favourite with her brothers, for Roy teased, and Richard snubbed her pertness severely. Roy, however, seemed to possess a fund of sweet temper for family use, which was a marked contrast to Richard's dictatorial and somewhat stern manner, and he hastened now to cover poor Olive's discomfiture.
'Never mind, Lily, a little extra ventilation is not unhealthy, and is a somewhat wholesome discipline; you may cobble me up a pair for to-morrow if you like.'