“I say, I wish you girls would shut up or clear off,” responded Tom crossly; for things felt a little flat this morning. “How is a fellow to work with all this chattering going on round him?”
“Why, you haven’t opened your books yet,” replied Hatty, in an aggrieved voice; but Bessie hastily interposed:
“Tom is quite right to want the room to himself. Come along, girls, let us go to mother in the morning-room; we might do some of our plain sewing, and then I can tell you about Aunt Charlotte. It is so long since we have been cosy together, and our needles will fly while we talk—eh, Hatty?”
“There are those night shirts to finish,” said Christine disconsolately; “they ought to have been done long ago, but Hatty was always saying her back ached when I wanted her help, and I could not get on with them by myself.”
“Never mind, we will all set to work vigorously,” and Bessie tripped away to find her work basket. The morning-room, as they called it, was a small room leading out of the drawing-room, with an old-fashioned bay window looking out on the garden.
There was a circular cushioned seat running round the bay, with a small table in the middle, and this was the place where the girls loved to sit and sew, while their tongues kept pace with their needles. When Hatty’s back ached, or the light made her head throb with pain, she used to bring her low chair and leave the recess to Bessie and Christine.
The two younger girls went to school.
As Hatty brought her work (she was very skilful with the needle, and neither of her sisters could vie with her in delicate embroidery), she slipped a cold little hand into Bessie’s.
“It is so lovely to have you back, Betty, dear,” she whispered. “I woke quite happy this morning to know I should see you downstairs.”
“I think it is lovely to be home,” returned Bessie, with a beaming smile. “I am sure that is half the pleasure of going away—the coming back again. I don’t know how I should feel if I went to stay at any grand place; but it always seems to me now that home is the most delicious place in the world; it never looks shabby to me as it does to Tom; it is just homelike.”