Part 11 (2/2)
Which of the Two?
BY
AGNES GIBERNE
”It's going to be a glorious day--just glorious! Joan, we must do something--not sit moping indoors from morning till night!”
Mittie never did sit indoors from morning till night; but this was a figure of speech.
”I'm all alive to be off--I don't care where. Oh, do think of a plan!
It's the sort of weather that makes one frantic to be away--to have something happen. Don't you feel so?”
She looked longingly through the bow-window, across the small, neat lawn, divided by low shrubs from a quiet road, not far beyond which lay the river. The sisters were at breakfast together in the morning-room, which was bathed in an early flood of suns.h.i.+ne.
Three years before this date they had been left orphaned and dest.i.tute, and had come to their grandmother's home--a comfortable and charming little country house, and, in their circ.u.mstances, a very haven of refuge, but, still, a trifle dull for two young girls. Mittie often complained of its monotony. Joan, eighteen months the elder, realised how different their condition would have been had they not been welcomed here. But she, too, was conscious of dulness, for she was only eighteen.
[Sidenote: ”Think of Something!”]
”Such suns.h.i.+ne! It's just _ordering_ us to be out. Joan, be sensible, and think of something we can do--something jolly, something new! Just for one day can't we leave everything and have a bit of fun? I'm aching for a little fun! Oh, do get out of the jog-trot for once! Don't be humdrum!”
”Am I humdrum?” Joan asked. She was not usually counted so attractive as the fluffy-haired, lively Mittie, but she looked very pretty at this moment. The early post had come in; and as she read the one note which fell to her share a bright colour, not often seen there, flushed her cheeks, and a sweet half-glad half-anxious expression stole into her eyes.
”Awfully humdrum, you dear old thing! You always were, you know. How is Grannie to-day?” Mittie seldom troubled herself to see the old lady before breakfast, but left such attentions to Joan.
”She doesn't seem very well, and she is rather--depressed. I'm afraid we couldn't possibly both leave her for the whole day--could we?” There was a touch of troubled hesitation in the manner, and Joan sent a quick inquiring glance at the other's face.
”No chance of that. We never do leave her for a whole day; and if we did we should never hear the end of it. But we might surely be off after breakfast, and take our lunch, and come back in time for tea. She might put up with that, I do think. Oh dear me! Why can't old people remember that once upon a time they were young, and didn't like to be tied up tight? But, I suppose, in those days n.o.body minded. I know I mind now--awfully! I'm just crazy to be off on a spree. What shall we do, Joan? Think of something.”
”Mittie, dear----”
”That's right. You've got a notion. Have it out!”
”It isn't--what you think. I have something else to say. A note has come from Mrs. Ferris.”
”Well--what then?”
”She wants me--us--to go to her for the day.”
Mittie clapped her hands.
”Us! Both of us, do you mean? How lovely! I didn't know she was aware of my existence. Oh, yes, of course, I've seen her lots of times, but she always seems to think I'm a child still. She never asked me there before for a whole day. How are we to go? Will she send for us?”
”Yes, but--but, Mittie--we can't both leave Grannie all those hours. She would be so hurt.”
”So cross, you mean. You don't expect _me_ to stay behind, I hope!
_Me_--to spend a long endless day here, poking in Grannie's bedroom, and picking up her st.i.tches, and being scolded for every mortal thing I do and don't do, while you are off on a lovely jaunt! Not I! You're very much mistaken if that is what you expect. Will Mrs. Ferris send the carriage or the motor?”
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