"Where were they left this time?" Ivy asked with interest.
"One at the Police Station, with a note to say the government had driven the parents to this; the other just outside our garden door, with no note at all, but I suppose it's the same old story. We've no clue to either yet; they're not from Little Chantreys, of course, but I suppose we shall trace them in time. Daddy's been making enquiries among the village people; none of them will say, if they know, but Daddy says they're all in a sad state of anger and discontent about the Baby Laws; he thinks they're working up worse every day. There's so much talk of different laws for rich and poor. Of course when people say that, what they always mean is that it's the same law for both, and ought to be different. Even that isn't true, of course, in this case, as the taxes are in proportion to the income; but it certainly does come very hard on the poor. Daddy thinks it his duty to preach about it again to-morrow, and that worries him, because he may get arrested and fined. But he feels it's right. He thinks the country is in real danger of risings and revolts if this goes on. He says the Stop It League is doing its best to stir up rebellion, and that would be such a calamity. And all these poor little babies abandoned or disowned all over the country; it goes to one's heart.... Don't talk about it, darling, it worries Daddy so.... And poor Brown is so little use with the vegetable garden. His Mind Training Course seems really to have quite upset him; he talks and looks so strangely now. And Daddy's worried about Mr. Hawtrey" (the curate), "who's joined the Church Improvement Society and has become dreadfully restless, and keeps saying Daddy ought to join it too."
Mrs. Delmer sighed, and changed the subject, as the vicar came back, to the amount of blossom there was on the white-heart cherry.
Ivy went indoors. She went up to the room she shared with Betty. Betty was there, staining a straw hat with Jackson's nut-brown hat-polish.
Ivy said, "A nice mess you're making. I should think you might remember it's my room as well as yours," and Betty said, "Socks." From which it may be inferred that these sisters, good-humoured in the main to others, were frequently short-tempered to one another.
Ivy said next, opening a drawer, "I won't stand it. You've been pinching my handkerchiefs."
Betty replied absently, and as if from habit rather than from reflection, "Haven't been near your old drawer."
"Liar. There were twelve here this morning and now there are only ten. I've told you before I won't stand having my things pinched. If you're too slack to earn enough to keep yourself in handkerchiefs, you must do without, that's all."
"I suppose you'd rather I'd used my sleeve at the Whites' tennis this morning, wouldn't you?"
"I shouldn't care if you had.... Tennis in the morning's a pretty rotten idea anyhow, if you ask me. You're the biggest slacker I ever came across. If I was Daddy I wouldn't keep you eating your head off, even if you aren't clever. You're going on like a girl before the war. Your Training Course doesn't seem to have done you the slightest good, either. It's people like you who'll rot up the whole plan."