“But you work so beautifully; and so does Nan,” interrupted Dulce, who was a little comforted, now she knew Phillis had no prospective nurse-maid theory in view. “I am good at it myself,” she continued, modestly, feeling that, in this case, self-praise was allowable. “We might be companions,—some nice old lady who wants her caps made, and requires some one to read to her,” faltered Dulce, with her child-like pleading look.
Nan gave her a little hug; but she left the answer to Phillis, who went at once into a brown study, and only woke up after a long interval.
“I am looking at it all round,” she said, when Nan at last pressed for her opinion; “it is not a bad idea. I think it very possible that either you or I, Nan,—or both, perhaps,—might find something in that line to suit us. There are old ladies everywhere; and some of them are rich and lonely and want companions.”
“You have forgotten me?” exclaimed Dulce, with natural jealousy, and a dislike to be overlooked, inherent in most young people. “And it is I who have always made mammy’s caps and you know how Lady Fitzroy praised the last one.”
“Yes, yes; we know all that,” returned Phillis, impatiently. “You are as clever as possible with your fingers; but one of us must stop with mother, and you are the youngest, Dulce; that is what I meant by looking at it all round. If Nan and I were away, it would never do for you and mother to live at the Friary. We could not afford a servant, and we should want the forty pounds a year to pay for bare necessaries; for our salary would not be very great. You would have to live in lodgings,—two little rooms, that is all; and even then I am afraid you and mother would be dreadfully pinched, for we should have to dress ourselves properly in other people’s houses.”
“Oh, Phillis, that would not do at all!” exclaimed Nan, in a voice of despair. She was very pale by this time: full realization of all this trouble was coming to her, as it had come to Phillis. “What shall we do? Who will help us to any decision? How are you and I to go away and live luxuriously in other people’s houses, and leave mother and Dulce pining in two shabby little rooms, with nothing to do, and perhaps not enough to eat, and mother fretting herself ill, and Dulce losing her bloom? I could not rest; I could not sleep for thinking of it. I would rather take in plain needlework, and live on dry bread if we could only be together, and help each other.”
“So would I,” returned Phillis, in an odd, muffled voice.
“And I too,” rather hesitatingly from Dulce. 57
“If we could only live at the Friary, and have Dorothy to do all the rough work,” sighed Nan, with a sudden yearning towards even that very shabby ark of refuge: “if we could only be together, and see each other every day, things would not be quite so dreadful.”
“I am quite of your opinion,” was Phillis’s curt observation: but there was a sudden gleam in her eyes.