Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/166

Rh Inspirited by these reflections, Jane ran downstairs whistling Mendelssohn's "I would that my love," very late for breakfast, very hungry, and very cheerful.

Lucilla, who had had no dreams, was busy at the rosewood table in the window with account books and pencil and scribbled scraps of paper.

"It's nearly the half-hour," she said reproachfully. "I've fed Othello, Mrs. Doveton is keeping the bacon hot—but you know how it frizzles up in the oven till there's nothing left—and look here, Jane, we've spent over a hundred pounds already, as well as what we've made out of the shop. We're on the road to ruin—and now that big house to keep up."

"Away with melancholy," replied Jane, "nor doleful changes ring! I'll fetch the bacon. Pour out the coffee, sweet angel." And so, whistling, to the kitchen.

"I don't see what you've got to be so jolly about," said Lucilla when she came back. "One never knows what to be up to with you. You went to bed last night as dismal as a crow, and so was I—all the responsibilities of that great house, and Mr. Rochester interfering and being jealous . . ."

"That would be a great liberty on Mr. Rochester's part," said Jane, helping herself to bacon—which was not chippy after all, because Mrs. Doveton had artfully kept it hot, not in the oven, but over a saucepan of boiling water—"a perfectly unwarrantable liberty. The bacon's not half bad." "I wish you wouldn't always interrupt," said Lucilla. "I was saying that you were quite miserable last night, and well you might be. That house—and Mr. Dix on our hands and Mr. Rochester behaving like a bear! It's too much! And you thought so too, and now this morning you come down as jolly as a sandboy and only say, 'Away with melancholy' when I tell you what a frightful lot of money we've spent."

"Do you want me to go on being miserable? Always? That's too heartless of you, Luce. But you don't, do you?"

"I want you to be serious. You said last night that