Great Britain -- Juvenile fiction; Love stories; Sisters -- Juvenile fiction
Eva was only too glad to sit close to the fire and watch the good woman
moving so quietly about and yet getting everything so quickly. 'Let me
have it here, may I?' she cried impulsively, for the old woman's
presence and her motherly attentions soothed the girl.
'If you wish. I doubt if the sitting-room is very warm yet, so I'll put
your tray on this table near the fire, and you'll get well-warmed before
you go out, and that's the secret of not taking chills,' remarked the
old woman as she put a plate of crisp bacon on the tray and a hot roll
beside it.
'You are a lovely cook, Mrs. Morrison,' said Eva. 'When I'm rich I'd
like you to live with me.'
'If you want to be rich when you are old you must save when you are
young. I'm thinking of buying you all money-boxes and putting into them
all the money I save for you every week,' she observed, for she was
given the housekeeping money every week, on Saturday, and after putting
aside for the rent, the rest was left with her to do as she thought
best; and on the next Saturday she accounted for it to Stella and Amy,
who, she insisted, must go into the accounts and see how it all went,
and to their astonishment and delight there was always a small balance,
which they left with the housekeeper for emergencies.
'I don't know how you manage to save anything. I couldn't. In fact, I
can't live on what I earn. If I don't get a rise I don't know what I am
to do,' said Eva.
'But you have more than my young lady, so you told me; if she can live
on it, why can't you?' objected the housekeeper.
'Because I am extravagant, I suppose; but I can't, and there's the end
of it,' said Eva.
'Nay, my bairn, that's not the end of it; the end of it is a very bad
one--debt and dishonesty, for they are the same thing to me--if one does
not try to put a better end to it; and, I'm sure, you would not keep in
debt, would you? But there, it's no time for such conversation at this
hour, when you ought to be eating a good breakfast before going out to
earn an honest livelihood. Have a piece more bacon, Miss Eva; it's hot
and will keep you going till dinner-time--you've a long morning before
you, remember,' urged the housekeeper.
Then she made up a little parcel with Eva's lunch, for she declared it
was extravagant to pay sixpence a day for dinner when she could always
give them pies or sandwiches to eat at midday, and cook them a nice hot
dinner in the evening.
Eva did not say anything, but though she was quiet she looked less
miserable than she had done when she came down. That day she did not go
to the Enterprise Club, where they ate their cold lunch or had the pies
heated if they liked; and when Amy rang her up on the telephone she said
she was lunching with a friend. Nor did she come home by the same train
as Amy, who even waited for the next, and then gave her up in despair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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