CHAPTER IV

Audrey had already unpacked a book for her father, a soft down cushion for her mother, and a pretty pinafore for Baby Joan.

"This is for—oh no, this is a pair of shoes for Debby—oh Debby, Debby, how dare you!" Audrey's face and voice and manner changed in a flash from sweet graciousness to hot anger. "Just look at the mess you have made, and your heel is on the brim of my best hat. Oh, how clumsy you are!"

Deborah was sitting right in the middle of Audrey's bed, and Tom on Faith's. Faith herself sat on the floor, gazing entranced at her sister's pretty belongings. In one hand she held a smart new patent leather shoe, in the other a pretty bedroom slipper. "What is Debby doing?" she asked absently. "Oh, Audrey, you have three—no, four pairs of house shoes! How——"

But Audrey was not in the mood to listen to a recital of her own blessings. "Deborah couldn't sit on a chair, or the floor, but must actually clamber on to my bed, with her boots on too! Just look at the mess she has made my white quilt in! It—it looks as though it had been slept on by—by a muddy dog."

Faith, roused by the wrath in her sister's voice, put aside the shoes, and looked up. "Debby," she said reprovingly, "you shouldn't. You know Audrey wants the bed to put her things on. Why couldn't you sit on the floor beside me?"

"I couldn't see all the things when I was down so low," explained Deborah, in an aggrieved voice.

"I have a good mind not to give you your presents at all," stormed Audrey. "I am sure granny wouldn't wish me to, if she knew how naughty you were."

"I don't want your old presents, you can keep them yourself," retorted Debby hotly, scrambling off the bed hurriedly, and dragging off a collection of gloves and laces with her. Her face was red and angry too, but tears were very near the surface.

Faith held out her arm, "Come and sit beside me, dear, and we will put on your new shoes, to see if they fit."

"I don't care if they fit or not, I don't want them! I wouldn't wear them if they did. Audrey had better keep them for herself—disagreeable old thing," and Debby, mortified and indignant, marched out of the room, banging the door behind her.

Faith's face grew troubled. The child had been so happy a moment before. "She did not know," she murmured apologetically. "She didn't know she was doing wrong, they always sit on my bed. Tom, you had better come off, my quilt is a clean one too."

In the silence that followed, Audrey grew uncomfortable. They had all been so excited and happy a moment before, and now the room was full of gloom. No one took any further interest in her box and what it contained. She knew that she had been only right and Debby very naughty, that children with dusty boots should not sit in the middle of clean white quilts; but perhaps she could have spoken more gently. The children did not know they were doing wrong.

Tom swung himself off the bed, and marched towards the door. Audrey looked at his stormy face nervously. "This is for you," she said, holding a tempting-looking parcel towards him.

For a moment he hesitated, evidently unwilling to accept it from her, but his better instincts prevailed. "Thank you," he said, but coldly, and laying it down without looking at it, he turned to Faith. "I am going to look for Debby," he said, and went out of the room.

"What dreadful tempers!" Audrey, mortified by Tom's snub, grew angry again. "They ought to be sent away to school, to a very strict school. They would be taught, then, how to behave themselves!"

"They aren't really bad," pleaded Faith wistfully. "I think they were hurt, you see Debby didn't know she was naughty, and—and they hardly know you yet. They would not mind so much if they did."

"Well, I think their tempers are dreadful, and their manners too." In her annoyance Audrey could not help speaking out the hard thoughts that were in her heart.

"All red-haired people have hot tempers, they say," quoted Faith quietly, "I know I have."

"Oh, well, I am glad I haven't."

"You! oh!" Faith glanced up at her sister with a comical little smile, but she said no more.

"This is yours," said Audrey glumly, dragging a large parcel from her box. "It is a blue coat like mine. Granny thought you might want one."

"Want one! I should think I did!" Faith sprang to her feet in a tumult of excitement. "Oh, Audrey, I haven't had a new coat for three years, and mine is so shabby and so small for me. How kind of granny to send me such a beautiful present. I wish she was here now. I do so want to thank her!"

Audrey stared at her sister, wide-eyed with astonishment. Not had a new coat for three years! Why, that was nearly as long as she herself had been away, and she had had one every winter and summer. Poor Faith! no wonder she looked so shabby. It was not entirely from her own carelessness then.

But Faith, blissfully unconscious of the thoughts passing through her sister's mind, had torn off the wrapper from the parcel, and was already slipping her arm into her new treasure. "Doesn't it look nice," she cried, pirouetting before the glass. "I must go and show it to mother and father, and the children," and she danced away to her mother's room, and even to the kitchen to show Mary.

Audrey remained where she was, gazing thoughtfully down into her trunk. She suddenly felt ashamed that she should possess so much, while Faith, who worked so hard, possessed so little. She thought of all the dresses lying in her box at that moment, the soft grey cashmere, the dark blue serge, the green tweed, the new blue muslin, and the cotton ones, white, blue, and green.

"I wish my dresses would fit Faith. I would give her one—unless she has enough already—and I don't suppose she has." She was still standing in the same spot, and still thinking, when Faith danced into the room again.

"Oh, Audrey, they all think it beautiful, and daddy says he hopes I will be able to have a new hat this summer." Then catching sight of her sister's grave face. "How are you getting on? Can you find room for all your things? You can have all my pegs but one—one will be enough for me."

"Haven't you many frocks?" asked Audrey. She spoke a little gruffly, but it was from shyness, and the thought of what she was about to do.

"I have this one," said Faith cheerfully, "this is my best—and an old one I wear in the mornings. I was to have had a new one, but the roof had to be mended, and it cost an awful lot. I wish this skirt was blue instead of brown, it would look so nice with my new blue coat, wouldn't it?"

"I have a blue skirt that you can have. I have two, a blue serge and a blue cloth. You shall have the blue cloth, it is rather short for me, so it ought to do nicely for you."

Faith could hardly believe her ears. "Oh, Audrey!" she gasped, "do you really mean it; but why should you give up your things? You may want them, and I don't mind being shabbier than you are. I don't really. You see the eldest is always the best-dressed."

"But I mind," cried Audrey. "I can't go about nicely dressed, and you in—in rags almost."

She did not mean to speak ungraciously, she did not mean exactly what her words conveyed, she was embarrassed by Faith's overwhelming gratitude, and her exaggerated idea of her—Audrey's—generosity. Something made her feel mean and petty. "You can wear your own blouses with it, so there will be no trouble about the fit."

"I shall be able to have a new blouse soon," said Faith blithely. "I am saving up to get some muslin. Miss Babbs has got some new in. Oh, it is so pretty, and only sixpence a yard. It will only take three yards, and when I have got it, Miss Babbs says she will cut it out for me, and help me make it. Isn't it kind of her! I have a shilling towards it."

"Oh!" Audrey made a dart at the bed where her bag, and a host of other things, lay in the utmost confusion. "I had quite forgotten," she said, diving in the bag for her purse, "granny sent half-a-crown to you, and a shilling each to Debby and Tom."

Faith's eyes grew rounder than ever. "I never knew such a lovely day as this. Why, it is like a very nice birthday!" she cried, overwhelmed with happiness. "Oh, Audrey, I can get my muslin now, and—and perhaps I can make my blouse by Sunday! Will you come to Miss Babbs' with me to-morrow to choose it?"

Miss Babbs' shop was of the useful kind so often met with in villages. The kind of shop where you seem able to buy everything that is needed, and many that are pretty, such as the blouse muslin on which Faith had set her heart. She was so afraid that it would be gone before she could get some of it, that she rushed off as soon as breakfast was over, carrying the greater part of her family with her.

"I would have liked that white one with the blue spots," she said, eyeing that particular roll wistfully, "but it would always be needing washing."

"Why don't you have this," suggested Audrey, pointing to a dark blue with a spot on it of the same colour, "with little white cuffs and a collar; it would look awfully well with your blue coat and skirt."

"Oh, so it would," cried Faith eagerly, "please give me three yards of that, Miss Babbs. What good taste you have, Audrey! Other people always choose prettier things for me than I should choose for myself."

Deborah pulled at her sleeve anxiously. "Fay—Fay, I want to get something for mother," she whispered in a tone that could be heard all over the shop, "and I want to get something for daddy, and Joan, and Mary."

"Oh!" said Faith, and forgot all about her own purchases. "You must get something for yourself too, darling."

"I don't want anything—look Fay! wouldn't Mary like a pair of those?" Her eyes were riveted on a boxful of cotton gloves, bright yellow, black, and white, marked fourpence three-farthings.

"She'd love a pair," said Faith with conviction. "She would like a yellow pair to wear with her new brown frock." She wished it was as easy to find something for all the others.

"Joan would like a ball, and mother—oh, why not get mother some oranges. She is so fond of fruit."

Debby was gazing enraptured at a shelf of china with a view on each piece. "Oh, Fay, I would like to give daddy a cup and saucer, may I?"

"Of course, darling, if you have money enough; he would like it ever so much." But the cups and saucers cost eightpence, and Debby's means would not run to that.

Tom came to her rescue, "I know, we will get it for daddy between us, that'll be fourpence each, you shall give him the cup if you like, Deb."

"No, I shan't," said Debby decisively, "we'll give half a cup and half a saucer each. Let me see, fourpence and fourpence three-farthings is nearly ninepence, a penny for Joan's ball, that only leaves twopence-farthing for mummy. Do you think she will feel hurt?" turning a grave face to Faith.

"Hurt! of course not!"

"I know," shouted Tom, "I'll save on Mary. I'll get her two sticks of peppermint rock, she loves it—then I'll be able to get a mug for mother, then if you give her oranges, and father doesn't have anything but his cup and saucer, that'll be about fair."

"I know what we'll do," said Debby, after long and deep thinking. "We'll put our things together, shall we, Tom? and not say which is from which."

Coming out of the shop nearly an hour later, with their arms full of parcels, they ran almost into the arms of a tall grey-haired gentleman. Debby gave a shout of delight. "Dr. Gray, oh, Dr. Gray," she cried excitedly, "I've spent a whole shilling, but look what a lot of things I've got." In her efforts to try and hug them and him too, she dropped some of them.

"I see you have bought a ball for someone," he laughed, rescuing it from the gutter. "Is that for me?"

"For you!" Debby chuckled hilariously at first, then her face grew suddenly serious. She had not bought anything for this lifelong friend, and she felt mean. "Would you like one," she asked anxiously, "'cause you shall have it, if you would!"

"Bless the child!" cried the doctor, picking her up unceremoniously and kissing her. "I haven't time for play. You give it to the lucky person you bought it for."

"That's Joan."

"Very well. When I want a game and have time, I will come up and play with Joan. What else have you got there?"

"Oranges for mother—oranges and a ball aren't easy to carry together, and I've got gloves for Mary, and a cup for daddy—at least, we have, me and Tom."

"My eye! you have been making Miss Babbs' fortune this morning! Where is the cup? In the crown of your hat?"

"No, forchinately Faith is carrying that, or it would have been broken."

"That is fortunate indeed." At the mention of Faith, the doctor turned to the elder sisters. "Ah, Miss Audrey," he cried, clasping her hand warmly, "it is nice to see you home again! I began to think you had deserted us for good. But you have come back at last to look after them all! Well they needed an elder sister's help; it was time you came."

Audrey smiled and blushed prettily. "I want to be useful," she said, and genuinely meant it. "When I have been here a little while I shall know better what I can do."

She mistook the doctor's meaning. She did not realise that he meant that her mother needed companionship and care; and Faith some help with the heavy burden which weighed down her young shoulders. She thought he referred to the house and the garden, and the muddle which reigned in both. And she walked home with her head held high. People should soon see that she, at any rate, knew how things should be done.

"Debby," she said sharply, as they passed through the garden on their way home. "When you have taken in your parcels do come out and pick up that old hat, and those dreadful old dolls, and carry them all up to your own room. They make the garden look dreadfully untidy."

Debby stood still in the path, her oranges dropping one by one, unheeded, through the bottom of the bag. Those dreadful old dolls! She could scarcely believe her ears. Her precious babies, her Dorothy, and Gladys and Dinah Isabella, called 'dreadful old dolls.' The colour mounted in her cheeks, and the tears in her eyes.

"They are not old!" she cried indignantly, "and they are not—not dreadful—they are lovely, they are darlings, and they have got to stay out of doors, they have been ill."

"Rubbish!" snapped Audrey irritably. "You don't care in the least how untidy you make the place look. I wonder you aren't ashamed for anyone to come here." She did not see, nor would she have cared if she had seen, the quivering of Debby's lips, the hurt feeling in her eyes.

Faith was torn two ways; full of pity for her little sister she yet felt she must uphold the authority of the eldest one. "Debby dear," she said, "your old hat, at any rate, oughtn't to be lying here, and just think how horrid it will be if slugs and snails get into it. It is time your dolls came in and had a bath, isn't it? They have been out all night. Tom, pick up that paper, will you, dear? You know daddy dislikes to see paper lying about."

"I forgot," said Tom, "we were playing shops when daddy called out and asked if we would like to go to the station."

"But that was yesterday," said Audrey coldly, "I saw it lying there when I came, it looked dreadful, it caught my eye at once. There has been plenty of time to pick it up since, and you should have done it."

The look of sullen rebellion came again to Tom's face. "Daddy didn't tell me to, or Faith. I suppose Audrey thinks she can boss us as much as she likes," he whispered angrily to Debby, "'cause she is the eldest. I wish she had stayed at granny's for ever and ever."

Faith walked on at her sister's side, looking grave and troubled. From time to time she glanced with anxious eyes at Audrey's face. She could see that she was annoyed, and irritated.

"I—I expect we seem rather untidy to you, after granny's," she remarked at last. She spoke apologetically, yet she was longing for a word of understanding sympathy. "With mother's illness, and—and little children, and no nurse to look after them, it has been so difficult to keep it all nice."

But Audrey only gave a snort of contempt. She had no sympathy to offer. "Nice!" she said sarcastically; "from the look of the place I shouldn't have thought anyone had tried. It is more like a pigsty than anything else. And the children haven't any manners at all," she added, quite losing sight of her own, and longing only to hurt someone.