"I must mend all those stockings to-morrow," mother has said each night; but there the matter has ended.
Shall she mend some now? or dust? or wash the curtains? or——
The door is flung open, and Clara comes in with a fresh armful of socks and stockings, barely dry from the kitchen.
"Missis says I'm to put these with the rest," she giggles, in her irritating way. "They make a good heap, don't they?"
That is the last straw. Betty waits until she is out of the room, and then gives way altogether.
"I can't bear it—I just can't!" she whispers, tapping her foot on the floor. "Grannie didn't know what it would be like when she said all that about loving one's home. I must get away from it—I must!"
The door opens again. "Oh, Betty, I just want you to—why, child, what is the matter? Are you going to be ill again?"
"No, of course not!" Betty's heart had grown softer as she thought of her Grannie; but she hardens it directly she hears her mother's voice.
"No, only everything's so horrid at home that I mean to ask father to let me learn typing."
"Betty, how can you be so ungrateful! Just because things are a bit behindhand—and that through your being away so long! There, I didn't think it of you!" And Mrs. Langdale goes angrily out of the room.