Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/242

Rh nothing better occurred to them than that Lucilla, as Aunt Harriet, should welcome her guests, and should be found placidly knitting when they came into the drawing-room after dinner.

The guests all arrived during the afternoon and were received by the elaborated aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Thornton and the brother first. They came in taxi-cabs, with a great deal of leathery new luggage—some trunks and some packing-cases. The two men were pleasant and cheerful, with dark, smiling faces. Mrs. Thornton was also pleasant. They were all nice to Jane and very nice to Miss Lucas.

"I do think they'll do," Lucilla said, when they had been shown to their rooms. "They're new brooms, of course, but they seem jolly, and they talk as if they'd read books and seen people and done things."

"Whereas our last P.G.'s had perhaps seen things and certainly had done people—us for one."

"Never mind grammar," said Lucilla. "Are my eyebrows straight? They feel as crooked as a ram's horn."

"They're as straight as—as I wish we were," said Jane. "The life of an adventuress is a terrible one. We are adventuresses, Lucilla—deceitful adventuresses. And here comes another cab or two. What a day! What a life!"

This time it was Miss Antrobus, with worn luggage and not very much of it. She seemed to Jane to be a very grave, reserved sort of girl; hardly smiled when she shook hands. But when Lucilla smiled on her the quiet smile of kindly age, and hoped in that soft voice that trembled a little, as old voices do, that Miss Antrobus would be happy here, she smiled, herself, quite nicely, and said:

"I think it is very good of you to take me in. I hardly thought you would. But Lady Hesketh and Mrs. Rochester seemed quite sure."

Jane did not quite like that, though she could not have told you why.

"You are studying domestic economy?" the untrue aunt went on.