CHAPTER II.

THE DAY THAT FOLLOWED.

DORA had resolved to be up to see her father start, and she felt vexed with herself when on awaking she heard the clock strike seven. She knew then that he had been gone nearly two hours, and becoming aware it was a very cold morning, she nestled down in her bed again, while her thoughts went back to the conversation of the previous evening and the good resolutions she had formed. How much she would do during the year begun that day! The children should all look up to, and love, and obey her, and her mother would lean more and more upon her, till when her father came home her mother would say, "I do not know what I should have done without Dora. Right nobly has she fulfilled the trust you gave her."

And thereupon she began thinking what a pretty story she could weave out of her own life. A year ago she had been told she might have a tiny room at the top of the house for her own use. It was very little larger than a good-sized cupboard, but she considered it a great privilege to be its only occupant, and here she had spent many a spare hour and half-holiday in scribbling tales and "making poetry," for it was Dora's great ambition to become an authoress.

Now, with herself for the heroine of her story, she wove a charming little romance. This proved such a delightful occupation that she quite forgot the lapse of time till the sound of a church bell, tolling for an early service, brought her back to the real world in which she lived. Ten minutes to eight, and eight o'clock was the breakfast hour! It was impossible to dress properly. So having put on her clothes, she washed her face, hurried over a prayer, and ran downstairs. She was relieved to find Katie cutting bread and butter, and helping generally.

"I am so sorry to be late," she said, as she gave her mother a kiss. "I meant to be in such good time this morning."

"Never mind, dear," was the kind reply. "I have no doubt you were tired when you went to bed last night, and perhaps did not go to sleep quickly. Now, will you please do Phil's feeder, and see that he doesn't eat his bread and milk too quickly?"

The Christmas holidays were not yet come to an end. Consequently as there was no hurrying off to be in good time for school, the meal was rather a longer one than usual. Perhaps Mrs. Grainger wished there had been need for haste. The younger children did not understand that it would have been kinder to their mother to have made no remark on the vacant place at the breakfast-table, nor to have talked so freely, and dolefully, too, of the father who had gone away.

Then Giles was very anxious to know whether he went "in a four-wheeler or a hansom," and whether he had taken a certain aluminium pencil-case, which Giles had bought with a shilling—the careful savings of several months—and given him for a Christmas present.

So the younger children lingered over the meal long after Edgar—who had returned from seeing his father off—had left for business, and Robert had taken his departure to the house of a schoolfellow with whom he was going to spend the day. They finished at last, however, and Dora offered to go for Lancie's tray. He, poor child, was not so well as usual this morning, and had taken his breakfast in bed.

When she returned to the sitting room, Mary, their little maid of-all-work, was clearing the table. Dora had to wait a few minutes before she found an opportunity of speaking to her mother.

"Mother dear," she said, "I want to begin at once to help you all I can. Will you let me attend to the cooking to-day?"

"You will do me a greater service if you will take the children for a long walk. It will be so good for them, this cold frosty morning, and in holiday time they always get restless if they are kept in the house."

Dora would much have preferred making the pudding, and preparing the cold meat left from yesterday's dinner for a hash, but her good resolutions were fresh in her memory, and she instantly said she would do as her mother wished.

"But you need not go yet," went on Mrs. Grainger. "If you start in an hour, or an hour-and-a-half, it will be soon enough. Before then you might get a nice practice."

"Yes, but I will put my room tidy first, please," said Dora. "I hadn't time to do it before I came down this morning. Oh, mother—" she stopped a moment, then throwing her arms round her mother's neck whispered, "I do hope I shall be a real help to you now and always. Will you let me have a quiet talk with you some time to-day? And will you give me a lot of work? I have been thinking I might teach the children entirely now. And there are other things I should like to undertake."

"Do not want to do too much at once, my child," replied her mother, fondly. "But I am sure it will be good for you to have regular daily work, and I intended speaking to you about it as soon as your father had gone. I cannot promise you a talk before the little ones have gone to bed, but we will certainly have a quiet chat together then. Now, dear, run and put your room in order."

Dora did as she was bid, but finding Katie stripping the beds, she offered to help her make them. When this was done, she dusted and put her own little "den" tidy, and then went down stairs to begin her practice. She did not grumble, as she often did, at being obliged to perform this duty in a cold room, and scales and exercises were patiently repeated till her fingers felt delightfully warm and lissom. But she was not sorry to shut the piano and go in search of her mother. She found her in the kitchen. Katie was there, too, washing currants for the pudding.

"Shall we start now, mother?" Dora asked.

"Yes, I think so. Will it be too much trouble to take Phil?"

"In the perambulator, do you mean?"

"He certainly could not walk to the Park and back. Katie will take her turn at pushing him."

At the mention of her own name, Katie looked up quickly.

"But, mother," she exclaimed, "Connie Pafford said she might perhaps call for me to go for a walk with her."

"So you said yesterday, dear, but she didn't come."

"No; and that is why I think she is sure to call this morning."

"I do not know that I should be sorry, Katie, if she should come and find you out," said Mrs. Grainger, somewhat gravely.

"Why, mother," and Katie's face flushed. "I am sure Connie Pafford is very nice. And it's very kind of her to want to be friendly with me. They are very much better off than we are. She has an uncle who keeps his carriage."

Mrs. Grainger smiled.

"I hope my little daughter will be wiser some day, and not think that because a little girl has an uncle who keeps his carriage, her friendship should be cultivated. But indeed, Katie, I am not at all anxious that your intimacy with the Paffords should increase; it is not likely to bring you any real good or happiness. Had it not been that on hearing of our trouble Miss Loam offered to take you and Dora on greatly reduced terms, you could not have remained at so good a school, and you must remember that your social position is very different from that of most of Miss Loam's pupils."

"Yes, and that's just what makes it so hard," rejoined Katie, with a sigh.

"Some of the girls would not think any the worse of you for being poorer than themselves, dear child," said her mother; "and there is no reason why you should not be friendly with them. But from what I have heard, I should not think the Paffords are of that class, and I do not think it well for you to seek their acquaintance."

"I don't consider the Paffords at all nice," remarked Dora. "They are proud and stuck-up, and Mrs. Pafford never takes the least notice of us if we happen to meet her in the street."

"You couldn't expect her to stop and speak to you when you were carrying that big basket the other day," said Katie. "You looked exactly like a servant."

"Let us hope she did not recognise your sister," said Mrs. Grainger, quietly, "for if Dora had been a servant and Mrs. Pafford had known her, it would have shown great ill-breeding to pass without any outward sign of recognition. It would have been more, a direct violation of the command 'be courteous.' But," she added, changing her voice, "we must break off our talk, or you will not get the long walk I want you to have. Katie dear, it is my desire that you go with your sister."

The words were said very kindly, but with a certain firmness that left no room for argument, and Katie went away to get ready herself and help to dress her little brothers and sisters.

But she forgot her vexation when she found herself in Regent's Park. It was a remarkably clear fine morning, and the trees were covered with tiny particles of hoar-frost that glittered like diamond dust in the bright sunshine. No wonder Phil wanted to get out of his perambulator and run and stamp his little feet on the hard, frozen ground.

Indeed the air was so fresh and exhilarating that Dora and Katie forgot their dignity as the two eldest daughters, and begging Giles and Olive to "mind Phil" for a few minutes—Lottie was considered old enough to take care of herself—started off for a race. Now, though there was a difference of two years in their ages, there was very little difference in their height; it was not surprising, therefore, that the younger girl was the victor. But, after all, it was a closely-contested point, and panting and laughing, with rosy-cheeks and sparkling eyes, they came back to their charges.

"Couldn't we go as far as the lake?" asked Giles. "I shouldn't wonder if there's skating going on, and I'd like to see it."

The lake was exactly opposite that part of the Park nearest Madeira Street, but as they were already half way across the large open piece of pleasure-ground, it was decided they could easily go to the water and be home by dinner-time. Giles was right; there were some skaters on the ice, but they were all near one spot, and too far off to be plainly seen, for Dora said they would not have time to go farther than the iron bridge that spans the lake at its narrowest point.

"Why," said Katie, as she stood there straining her eyes to see the skaters, "there's somebody just like Robert. There! Don't you see that boy who has just fallen down?"

But Dora was a little bit short-sighted.

"Nonsense," she said, "it couldn't be Robert. He wouldn't go against father's wishes so much as that."

Mr. Grainger's only brother had met his death from an accident on the ice. It had happened years ago end before he himself had married, but as long as he lived, he would never forget the fearful shock of seeing the dead body brought into the house. From that day he had a horror of skating, and he made it a command that not one of his children should learn the art. And Katie, remembering her father's well-known and solemnly impressed desire, thought she must have been mistaken, and dismissed the subject from her mind.

Perhaps she would have thought of it on her return home, and told her mother of the strange resemblance between Robert and the skater she had seen in the distance, but as soon as she got in, a note was given her, and, for a while, the contents banished everything else from her memory. It was an invitation from Connie Pafford to an evening party at her house.

"Oh! Mother, may I go?" she asked, breathlessly, when she had read the note aloud.

"You think it will give you pleasure?"

"Yes, of course," and Katie's eyes sparkled. "Besides, it isn't everybody Connie would invite to her house. Lots of the girls at school will envy me when I tell them where I've been. What kind of dress shall I have?"

"My dear child, you can only wear your best merino," replied her mother.

"But it's a dress party. Connie says in her postscript that she's going to wear a light blue silk, trimmed with cream-coloured lace. I don't think I can go in a dark green merino."

"I cannot give you a new frock for the occasion, Katie; that is quite impossible. If Connie really wants you at her party, she will not care about your dress. And your green will look very nice with some pretty lace at the neck and wrists."

"I'm afraid I couldn't go in a woollen dress," and tears of disappointment suddenly filled Katie's eyes.

"I am sorry to appear unsympathetic," said her mother, "but in that case, I see nothing else for you to do but to write and decline the invitation."

Dora, who had been reading aloud to Lancie when Connie's letter was brought in, had only left off to hear what it was about, and then resumed her occupation. But her attention was only half given to the book; she had heard the whole of the conversation between her mother and sister, and now looking up, said eagerly—

"But I have a dress I think you could wear, Katie—the white serge I had for cousin Mary's wedding. It's a little bit dirty, and it may be a little old-fashioned now, but we could turn it, and perhaps alter the make."

"That will do beautifully," said Katie, whose face was again all smiles. "And if it's too short, I daresay we could let it down. I'll go and fetch it at once. Where shall I find it, Dora?"

Hardly waiting for the answer, she ran upstairs to her sister's room, and Dora again turned to her book. But a little, thin hand was put gently over the page, and a low, sweet voice said,—

"I am glad you did that, Dolly. It was kind of you. Katie has set her heart upon the party, and else wouldn't have gone in her merino."

Dolly was Lancie's pet name for his eldest and favourite sister.

"It's not any great kindness," said Dora. "I don't suppose I should ever have worn the dress myself again. I think—" she paused a moment, then went on thoughtfully—"it seems to me, Lancie, that the more a thing costs us the more merit there is in doing it, and if it doesn't cost us anything, there's no merit in doing it. It isn't as if I were going to the party end wanted to wear the dress myself, for instance. Now it cost me a great deal more to take the children out for a walk this morning, when I would much rather have stayed at home, and made the pudding and cooked the dinner. I am afraid I haven't expressed myself very well, but you know what I mean."

"Yes—'neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which cost me nothing.'"

There was a silence after that until Katie came back with the dress over her arm, for Lancie had covered his face with his hands, and Dora knew he did not wish to be spoken to.

Again a deep thrill of joy had throbbed through the little cripple's heart. God knew what it cost him to lie so many weary hours in pain and weakness, and be cut off from the pleasures which all his brothers, down to Baby Phil, enjoyed. He knew how high a price was paid for the sacrifice which he could daily offer up—the price of his weariness and suffering—and in the thought, a deep thankfulness rose from Lancie's heart that he had so rich a gift to offer. Ah! If he could always feel as he was feeling then.

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