Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/73

 along as I was with Charles. She dried her dishes, filled a glass of milk, and buttered two pieces of bread.

"That great big lazy—thing—in there," shrieked Mabel, confusing the extent of her anger with the size of the nymph in the nearby room, "she ought to be getting your breakfast. She won't even wash the dishes."

"She'll wash the dishes, and yours too. She doesn't want you to wash her dishes, and neither do I," retorted Mae abruptly, and left her sister facing the substantial fare she required to fortify her spirit against the cross she had to bear.

"Golly," Lucy said, hopping out of bed, "she's mad this morning!"

"Don't aggravate her. I don't know where we would go if she puts us out."

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed holding the glass of milk with both hands. Partly loosed white rag curlers dangled over her ears, and a froth of milk edged her upper lip. She looked cherubic, frail, and troubled.

"Maybe we shouldn't have come. Maybe we can go away soon. Gee, I hope so. Anyway, I've been thinking I can be a cashgirl at Woolworth's Saturdays. They need cashgirls. It isn't hard. Then we could save that money. I'll say I'm fifteen."

But Mae was adamant. "No, if you want to, and it doesn't tire you, do your bar work so it won't be so hard when you begin taking dance lessons. I want you to start as soon as school opens and we have a little money saved up. See that the kitchen is nice and neat when you're through and buy a box of Tintex because that dress is awfully faded." She pulled a brown toque over her neat curls, pulling a few out to puff over each ear. She laid a quarter and a dime on the bureau. "Be sure and drink milk this noon and if you eat out remember to order wholewheat bread and don't forget to weigh yourself—a ballet dancer needs strong bones."

Alone, Lucy took off her nightgown and stood in front of the bureau mirror, moving her arms through the ballet positions. She looked at herself moving her arms as impersonally as a piano student fingering exercises, raising the index fingers slightly while drawing the thumbs closer to the palm. Fingers in position, she turned the palms outward. There, that was it—if only her arms were a little fatter.

She gulped the remaining milk and brought her legs together in a w'ell turned out fifth position, slapping her chest to see whether it Rh