"I did not anticipate draughts this morning," said poor Gracie. "I must just get this done when I go to bed." This is the last refuge of the overdriven, and one which is so frequently alluded to by the Jamiesons that I often fear they deny themselves the proper amount of sleep.
George here kissed each of his sisters in turn, and ran upstairs to say good-bye to his mother, while the omnibus waited at the gate.
Maud, who was trimming hats for the whole family, and who was surrounded by a curious medley of ribbons and finery, said: "What about the Church Council work? I am afraid we have forgotten it."
"That's my business," said Gracie tragically; "and I must give this up;" and she stopped her sewing-machine, and rolled the purple cotton pinafore into a tight ball and placed it on the table.
"Dear Gracie," said Margaret, "could I not do it? I could get it in between the Kaffirs and my baking."
"I would offer to do it," said Eliza, with that affectionate helpfulness which distinguishes The Family, "only I am so filled up with soup." Eliza referred to her soup-kitchen accounts.
The small servant here appeared at the door, and said that an old woman wanted to see Miss Gracie.
"My time! my time!" said Gracie, and went to the back door to give the last shilling of her quarter's dress allowance to the poor woman in distress.
"The worst of playing draughts is," said Eliza, "that one can do nothing else at the same time, except it be to add up accounts in one's head. Otherwise I should have been only too glad. I tell you what I can do, though—I can play instead of Gracie this morning, if she won't mind my keeping the candle alight to do my Browning article after I have gone to bed."
Mettie always offers to help every one, but so slow is the little woman's way of working that the energetic family of Jamieson are quite aware that probably the business will be weeks in doing; so their answers to Mettie's offers, given in a kindly voice, are always: "My dear, you have got your letters to write, and your practising—we could not do without your singing in the evening, you know."