Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/219

220 of. . . That pinky silk would look lovely under a bluey purply sort of crepe-de-chine. There'd be plenty of it for us each to have a dress. That would be something happening. . ."

"Yes. Your Aunt Lucy did certainly have the loveliest things. These curtains must have come from a much bigger house than the cottage. And I don't call a new dress 'things happening.' Things that you do yourself aren't 'things happening.' It's things other people do. Those loathsome P.G.'s that didn't pay, and Mrs. Dadd, and you being Mrs. Rochester."

"That doesn't count—it wasn't real."

"Quite real enough, thank you. And now everything turned upside down to get this room ready for these horrid people." "They're nice people," Lucilla insisted.

"I don't care how nice they are—they come upsetting things."

"With fourteen pounds a week?"

"Guineas," said Jane absently. "Do you know, Luce, I think there's something to be said for the sheltered life? We had a little taste of it, just that week or two after the Pigs bolted. That's the life Emmie has, always—no anxieties; just time to be jolly and enjoy herself."

"If that's what you feel, you'd better go and be a seraglio at once."

"Nonsense. And I'm not saying what I mean. Did you ever notice how sometimes you don't? I think what I really mean is that I don't want strangers about—however nice they are; and I mayn't think they're nice either. Hold that corner steady and I'll stitch it now and have done with it, and we'll nail up the untidy edges underneath."

"I wish you'd rein in your wandering mind and tell me what's happened."

"Oh, nothing," said Jane, and stopped short suddenly. "Only Forbes says she didn't understand it was to be a boarding-house, and Mrs. Doveton says we ought to keep accounts,