There were just the three of them in a cosy room, one of those universally useful apartments which are not too grand for working, studying, or playing in, as the case may be, but in which mothers and their young folk love to congregate. Florence, mostly called Flossie, on account of her lovely hair, which was just one mass of silken locks, was the eldest, and a girl of sixteen. She was generally considered "a little bit blue," being a hard worker at her books, and great in various branches of study unknown to girls when our mothers were at school.
One of the teachers had been heard to call Flossie the prop of her class; whereupon Master Jack, who was very fond of having a sly poke at girls in general, and his sisters in particular, said he had never known such an appropriate name for anybody.
"Floss is not only a prop but a perfect clothes-prop in every position," he said, in allusion to his sister's height, slimness, and length of limb.
At this moment Flossie was studying for an "exam." And, though very fond of her young brother, she did not like to be interrupted by Jack's "rampage" for his lost penny.
Madge, the second girl, though nearly two years younger, was a born housewife; full of motherly instincts, and doting on little children. She was still a child, despite those graver employments and abstruse studies which are supposed to promote the higher education of women in these enlightened days. She had been a doll-worshipper always, and now, at more than fourteen years of age, was the happy possessor of an immense family in wax, wood, cloth, and porcelain. Amongst these she was as busy as was Flossie at her books—furbishing up the whole lot, washing faces, repairing garments, tidying dishevelled locks, and otherwise making the multitude of dolls fit to be seen. Madge had brought down a doll's house, relegated a year before to the garret, and was setting it in order for the amusement of some very small cousins who were expected on the following day.
At first Jack had been helping Madge, but the loss of that precious penny—and a new one, too—had diverted his attention, and in the search for it, he had upset chairs, unmade beds, brought down miniature pictures, to the destruction of those works of art, and brought down upon himself, in addition, the wrath of his younger sister and playmate.
It was amusing to see how the ten-year-old lad's nature seemed compounded of the very opposite characteristics of the girls. At lesson time, he plodded away beside Flossie, who helped him with his declensions, gave him almost too-learned lectures on the beauties of Euclid, and piloted him tenderly across the Pons Asinorum.
At playtime, he entered into Madge's pursuits, believed in the reality of doll families and all their joys and sorrows. He even assisted at their toilettes by dressing the boy juveniles, propriety being duly considered, though under the roof of a doll's house. Madge was playfellow, sister, friend, little mother and comforter to Jack from and before the time he could toddle. Her great grief in those early days was that he would grow, and often was she heard to say, when remarking his progress upwards, "Oh, mamma, won't it be a pity when Jack is grown out of a baby!" He being the youngest of the family, and consequently the darling of all.
Father and mother both rejoiced in the close union among the children, which helped, especially in Madge's case, to keep the girls young—alas! A very difficult matter in these high-pressure days. And Jack had a good deal of quiet humour for a lad of his age. He professed to read Madge like a book, and declared that she made the coming of the little visitors an excuse to have a turn at the dolls, of which she was as fond as ever; moreover, that she still nursed them on the quiet, and caressed them with all the old tenderness when nobody was by, though in company she tried to look as grown-up as dear old Floss, who was, in many ways, nearly as old as Methuselah and as wise as Solomon.
An extra crash amongst the small furniture, and a half-penitent apology from Jack, and then Madge began to scold in earnest.