'Mamma will be delighted to teach you; she is so fond of you, Miss Ross. She was talking about you half the evening. Do you know, she did not go to bed until past one o'clock; she was finishing my blue cambric. Cyril begged her to put it down half a dozen times, but she said no, she had made up her mind to finish it—and the hat, too. He had to go off to bed and leave her at last, and it was not really done until past one.'
Audrey made no comment. She was asking herself how far she ought to encourage Mollie's childish loquacity—she was very original and amusing.
'But if I do not check her,' thought Audrey, 'there is no knowing what she may say next. All the Blakes are so very outspoken.'
But Mollie was disposed to enlarge on a topic that interested her so closely. She had arrived at an age when a girl begins to feel some anxiety to make the best of herself. Her nice new frock was an important ingredient in the day's pleasure; she felt a different Mollie from the Mollie of yesterday. It was as though Cinderella, dusty and begrimed with her ashes, had suddenly donned her princess's robe.
'I am so glad you think my frock pretty,' she went on. 'I shall be able to go to chapel with Cyril next Sunday. This is my Sunday frock; my blue cambric is for every afternoon. It was very fortunate mamma was in her working mood yesterday, for she would never have allowed me to come in my old brown frock. She is so busy to-day; she made me bring her down a pile of Kester's shirts that want mending—"For the poor boy is in rags," she said. Stop! I think it was Cyril who said that. I thought it was funny for mamma to notice about Kester. Yes, it was Cyril.'
'Mollie, do you know your mother calls you a sad chatterbox?' observed Audrey at this point.
Mollie coloured up and looked perturbed.
'Oh, Miss Ross, did mamma tell you that really? Perhaps that was why she wanted to get rid of me yesterday, because I talk so much. Do you know'—dropping her voice and looking rather melancholy—'I never do seem to please mamma, however much I try; and I do try—oh! so hard. I never mind Cyril laughing at me, because he does it so good-naturedly; but when mamma speaks in that reproachful voice, and says that at my age I might help her more, I do feel so unhappy. I often cry about it when I go to bed, and then the next day I am sure to be more stupid, and forget things and make mistakes, and then mamma gets more displeased with me than ever.'
'My dear little Mollie, I am sure you work hard enough.'
'Yes, but there is so much to do,' returned Mollie, with a heavy sigh. 'Biddy is so old, she cannot make the beds and sweep and clean and cook the dinner without any help. Kester is always saying that if we had a younger and stronger servant we should do so much better. But mamma is so angry when she hears him say that; she declares nothing will induce her to part with Biddy—Biddy used to be mamma's nurse, you know. Sometimes I get so tired of doing the same things day after day, and I long to go out and play tennis, like other girls. But that is not the worst'—and here poor Mollie looked ready to cry; 'do you mind if I tell you, Miss Ross? I seem talking so much about myself, and I am so afraid of wearying you.'