Chapter 2

IN THE SEWING-ROOM

Three women occupied the sewing-room with the splendid outlook: a mother and her two daughters. The mother sat in a low rocking-chair, a picture of mournful helplessness, her hands listlessly resting on her lap, while tears had left their traces on her time-worn face. The elder daughter paced up and down the room as striking an example of energy and impatience as was the mother of despondency. Her comely brow was marred by an angry frown. The younger daughter stood by the long window, her forehead resting against the pane, while her fingers drummed idly on the window sill. Her gaze was fixed on the blue Bay, where rested the huge British warship "Consternation," surrounded by a section of the United States squadron seated like white swans in the water. Sails of snow glistened here and there on the bosom of the Bay, while motor-boats and what-not darted this way and that impudently among the stately ships of the fleet.

In one corner of the room stood a sewing-machine, and on the long table were piles of mimsy stuff out of which feminine creations are constructed. There was no carpet on the floor, and no ceiling overhead; merely the bare rafters and the boards that bore the pine shingles of the outer roof; yet this attic was notable for the glorious view to be seen from its window. It was an ideal workshop.

The elder girl, as she walked to and fro, spoke with nervous irritation in her voice.

"There is absolutely no excuse, mamma, and it's weakness in you to pretend that there may be. The woman has been gone for hours. There's her lunch on the table which has never been tasted, and the servant brought it up at twelve."

She pointed to a tray on which were dishes whose cold contents bore out the truth of her remark.

"Perhaps she's gone on strike," said the younger daughter, without removing her eyes from H.M.S. "Consternation." "I shouldn't wonder if we went downstairs again we'd find the house picketed to keep away blacklegs."

"Oh, you can always be depended on to talk frivolous nonsense," said her elder sister scornfully. "It's the silly sentimental fashion in which both you and father treat work-people that makes them so difficult to deal with. If the working classes were taught their place--"

"Working classes! How you talk! Dorothy is as much a lady as we are, and sometimes I think rather more of a lady than either of us. She is the daughter of a clergyman."

"So she says," sniffed the elder girl.

"Well, she ought to know," replied the younger indifferently.

"It's people like you who spoil dependents in her position, with your Dorothy this and Dorothy that. Her name is Amhurst."

"Christened Dorothy, as witness godfather and godmother," murmured the younger without turning her head.