Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/218



" as if we were being whirled along in a—what-do-you-call-it?" said Jane.

"Motor-car?" suggested Lucilla, her speech obstructed by pins.

"No, maëlstrom," said Jane. "Things do keep happening so. Don't put in so many pins, Luce. I can see how it goes all right."

They were occupied in covering two easy-chairs with bright chintz. I am sorry to say that they had cut up a pair of curtains twelve feet long by six feet wide so as to avoid the extravagance of buying new cretonne to brighten the sitting-room which they were arranging for their new guests. The curtains were beautiful, with purple birds and pink peonies and pagodas of just the right shade of yellow to be worthy to associate with the pinks and the purples. The curtains were lined and bordered with faded rose-coloured Chinese silk, and pounds could not have bought their like. Shillings, on the other hand, and not so very many of them either, could have bought the cretonne. Pity, but do not despise these inexperienced housekeepers. They did not know—how should they? Even the most charming girls do not know everything. There was a girl once who cut up a fine hand-woven linen sheet to line a dress with and thought she was being economical, but that is another, and a sadder, story.

"Well, we want things to happen, don't we?" said Lucilla. "Wasn't it rather the idea that we should live a strenuous life full of hard work, and earn our own livings with the sweat