Part 6 (2/2)
The Bill was pa.s.sed. Hurrah!
The B. D. Society was allowed; and mother had actually agreed to be patroness and prize-giver.
”What a dear, jolly mother she is!”
”She's a duck, and no mistake!”
Rather unbusinesslike language, but very expressive!
Well, but what did it mean, this B. D. S.?
It was only a Bedroom Decorating Society. But it seemed a very beautiful idea to the four curly headed little girls who sat squeezed up together in the large nursery armchair.
Pattie, Mollie, Kitty, and Norah. Four little Irish maidens, with this lovely plan to talk over and make perfect, while a snowstorm kept them indoors to-day.
_Pattie._ ”Don't let's tell each other how we'll do our rooms until afterwards.”
_Norah._ ”You'll _never_ keep your plans to yourself. You never _could_ keep anything in.”
_Mollie (up in arms for her sister)._ ”Don't be nasty, Norah, or something _bad_ will happen to you!”
_Norah (looking a little ashamed of herself and wisely changing the subject)._ ”Let's begin now. We'll take all the things out of our rooms first, and then put them back in new places--shall us?”
As you may guess, the B. D. S. was intended to promote a general taste for artistic style in the children's bedrooms, or as Kitty expressed it, simply and to the point, ”It is to make us put our things _illigantly_.”
Mother determined to let this new idea have a fair trial; though she could not help feeling a little nervous as she heard the scrimmaging of the furniture, and thought of possible breakages.
She sat at her needlework, and listened to the distant sounds which reached her faintly from the rooms above. Then she began to wonder whether the excitement and interest would last out the fortnight, at the end of which she had been asked to present a prize.
Suddenly her motherly heart gave a terrible throb.
There was a thud--thud--thud, and that horrid b.u.mping sound, as something soft tumbled over and over down the stairs.
With a white face she rushed out of the dining-room, to see little Norah and a large bolster roll on to the floor at her feet!
A breathless scream escaped from the terrified child.
The three other curly heads were peeping through the banisters, and three pairs of Irish blue eyes were looking horribly scared and unhappy.
But mother did not see them.
She picked up the screaming Norah, and carried her into the dining-room, while nurse came running from the kitchen and her ironing.
All the time that the sobbing little victim of the B. D. S. was being soothed into calmness, and the big swelling wheal on her forehead bathed and tended, Pattie, Mollie, and Kitty--upstairs--looked at one another in frightened silence. Then Mollie said sadly--
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