Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/192



" were three of them, but they looked as big as a crowd. They've got great, pale faces like potatoes, and they're all exactly alike. I've taken them up to their rooms, and one of them said hers had a north aspect; and another one said her room was like an oven with the afternoon sun—and the third one just turned up her nose without a word. Pigs!" Thus Jane to Lucilla, having shown the guests to their rooms.

"And they want hot water and their luggage carried up. The porter brought it and he's out there now, grumbling at what they paid him. You can hear him going on like a gramophone before it really begins. And they want someone to carry up the luggage; and both the maids are out; and Mrs. Dadd was cheeky, and I've told her to go—and she's going. She's going now, this minute, while we're chattering,"

"I'm not chattering," said Lucilla.

"No," said Jane, "you're always right. You're always cool and calm and collected and—and—blameless. And I'm always in the soup. And then you rub it in." And she burst into tears.

"It's not that," she sobbed, when Lucilla had come to her and had put her arm round her and had said, "Don't, darling," and "Never mind," and "There, dear, there," and all the things that girls do say to each other when one of them is weeping. "It's not unhappiness. It's rage. I could kill Mrs. Dadd. I could. I should like to. And Addie was rubbing the cat all over with a jammy spoon and it'll go