Part 13 (2/2)

”Yes, it's very pretty. What stuff is it?”

”Only pink cambric, trimmed with pink embroidery. Would you like me to make you one?”

”What do you mean?”

Nora's eyes brightened perceptibly.

”What I say,” replied Annie. ”I made this dress for myself. I make all my dresses, for I am not at all well off; in short, I am poor, and Mrs.

Willis is so sweet and dear that she gives me a couple of hours every day to devote to needlework. In consequence I have got some pretty things, although they cost next to nothing. Now, I think you and I are something alike. We are both dark, and we have both got bright colour.

Oh, I don't mean that you have a bright colour just now, you poor little darling; but when you are well, you are sweet, like a wild rose. Suppose I make you a pink cambric frock, and a white one and a blue one? I have got a white and a blue. When you're well again you'll look quite lovely in them, Nora. What do you say?”

”I'd like it awfully,” said Nora. ”You are very good, very good; but I haven't got any money. I--I am even poorer than you.”

”Are you? How delightful. I adore _poor lady_ girls, because they are always contriving, and that's so interesting. We'll make the dresses out of odds and ends, and they shan't cost you a penny.”

”It's very good of you,” said Nora. She was too weak to argue and protest, and the vision of her pretty little self in alternate dresses of pink and white and blue cambric was decidedly refres.h.i.+ng.

She lay and looked at Annie and acknowledged to herself that she made a pretty, a beautiful, picture, and the discontented lines round her mouth vanished, and the time did not seem long.

That evening Molly, excited and in high spirits, arrived on the scene.

Molly was absolutely trembling as she came into the room where Nora was lying; but although her love was ten times deeper, she had not Annie's marvellous tact, and soon contrived to tire poor Nora dreadfully. The nurse seeing this sent her away, and Molly came back to Hester with a very crestfallen expression of face.

”I can't make out how it is,” she said; ”but Nora does not seem a bit glad to see me.”

”Oh, nonsense,” said Hester; ”what do you mean?”

Annie was sitting in a corner of the room busily engaged over Henry Kingsley's novel, ”Geoffrey Hamlyn.” She did not raise her eyes, but bent her curly head still lower over the fascinating pages. Nan had gone to spend a few days at the Towers, and the great house at the Grange seemed very quiet and still.

Molly sank down into a chair near Hester.

”I have been so excited about this meeting,” she said. ”Nora is almost my twin-sister, and I have suffered so terribly about her. I cannot tell you the relief and joy of being allowed to come here to look after her, but now I fear I shall be next to no good.”

”Well, you'll be no end of good to me,” said Hester; ”and, of course, Nora will like to have you by-and-by, but she is still very weak and cannot bear the least excitement.”

”But nurse tells me that you, Annie, spent some hours in her room to-day.”

At these words Annie sprang to her feet, and ”Geoffrey Hamlyn” fell with a bang to the floor.

”I did spend hours in her room,” she said, ”and I don't think I tired her; but, then, perhaps you kissed her a lot, Molly?”

”Kissed her?” exclaimed Molly; ”I should think so, at least a hundred times.”

”Oh, good gracious, how dreadfully fatiguing for a sick person. Well, you see, I didn't kiss her once, nor even touch her.”

”But you aren't her sister,” said Molly.

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