E. Nesbit

“ I say everyone, because Doris had a tea-party that day, and her guests helped her to hang the curtains. That is the best of Bohemia. One is not expected to keep the real pleasures of life to oneself. If one buys a new carpet or new curtains all one’s friends crowd round with sympathetic interest. Even a new kettle is an event to which no spectator can really be indifferent. ”

“ It was nearly dark when Doris arrived on the back of the tall fairy prince who was, she affirmed, her little pet elephant. “And there’s a bear down there, and a gazelle and a beautiful giraffe-lady and I did Cook for them, and all the aunts and Madame and the girls, and they did laugh.”
“When she’s asleep,” said the little pet elephant diffidently, as he got down into the Flemish grave again, “won’t you come down and have supper with us? They’re all art students—and all jolly, You will you, won’t you?”
Daphne would, and gladly. ”

“ People whom she could not influence, people who would not try to influence her. Strangers, to whom she was a stranger. Daphne felt the world widen. A graceful girl with untidy dark hair and a long neck was leaning forward supported by a stiff arm on the divan and saying:
“What a darling your little sister is,” in a tone which convinced Daphne that, to the speaker, Doris’s sister, at least, was no darling.
“She is rather nice,” Daphne admitted, and wondered whether this was the giraffe or the gazelle. ”

“ The face, however, was pink and fresh as the hands when Doris presented herself at his door with a tap and “Daffy said to knock—but it couldn’t not be me when it’s me that’s having tea with you—your room isn’t so big as ours—and who is it washes your hands, because I think it’s high time——”
“It’s charcoal—what I draw with, you know. I’ll wash it off now, this minute.”
“Someone ought to wash you when you get as black as that. You have to have a master-mind—Daffy says so—when it’s really black. I’ll call Daffy—she’ll show you what a real good washing is.” ”

“ The other half he went without, because he saw Daphne’s face.
“May I have her?” he asked; “you’re awfully tired, and I’ll take all sorts of care of her.”
“Yes, yes,” said Doris, “do let me, Daffy.”
“It’s very kind of you,” said Daphne—“a little washing first, perhaps. London does come off on you so. I’ll send her down in a minute.”
“Only paws, Daffy,” he heard the stipulation as he got his length down through the trap door, “not faces. Faces isn’t fair more than three times in one day.” ”

“ The child leaned its weight back, and hung by its stretched arms to the neck of the kneeling Daphne.
“Dear Daphne,” she said, “what can we do? I do wish Cook was here!”
It was a knock on the trap door that interrupted the third quite successful fairy story. Every knock on the door brought Daphne’s heart into her mouth. It always might herald a discovering relative. So far it had only announced the charwoman who “did for Mr. Claud on the next floor, and please miss he thought you might be wanting someone to do for you” ”

“ She was here, free—with Doris. The door that had money on the other side would open if she pushed hard enough. She straightened her shoulders and threw back her head and set her face sternly, a little fiercely.
“What are you going to do?” the child asked anxiously through a mug of milk—“not go and tell aunts what you think they are? Don’t let’s, Daffy.”
Daphne laughed and began to clear away the breakfast things. There was plenty to do—the bed to make, the furniture to arrange, the room to sweep. ”

“ It is splendid to think that Doris is now dependent on me for everything. I shall simply live for her. We have a beautiful big attic, and we do our own housework. I shall give Doris lessons, of course. I intend to earn my own living, but I don’t know what at, yet. ”

“ Is it very awful to talk to people you’re not introduced to? Because I seem to be always doing it. Y. Ms. I mean. Of course with a lady it wouldn’t matter. Doris and the cousin seem to be playing wild-beasts. You hear everything very plainly because there are no carpets, and the cousin’s boots. As I am sending this through Maria I may as well say that the cousin is not really one, but a Y. M. and a perfect stranger. ”

“ Anyone who did things, I mean.”
“We don’t do much,” said Green Eyes doubtfully. “We’re only art students.”
“I’m a schoolgirl,” said Daphne; “at least I was till the other day. And now”—the proper method of making cocoa was being hotly debated and under cover of it she found courage—“and now I feel so silly. Mr. Winston said you were all art students, and this is the only ‘arty’ frock I’ve got—and now I feel like a person in a play. ”

“ The supper had got to petits suisses from Garnier’s and to éclairs and mille-feuilles, from the only really French pastry cook’s in London—I mean the one in Charlotte Street—and Daphne had had time to wonder whether shyness always thus fools its victims, before Green Eyes spoke up.
“Miss Carmichael,” she said, “is one of Us. She has got to earn her living. ”

“ And tell me everything. Have you seen anybody—anybody new? You can write just what you like now, because there’s no one here who’d open my letters. I know they used to try and read through your envelopes at Laburnum Lodge. ”