"I'm sure I don't know anything about it, my dear. It seems to me
that what Dorothy was saying was very true--very true indeed; and I
think, love, you misunderstood her; or, perhaps, she misunderstood
you; or I may be misunderstanding it altogether; so we'd better not
talk any more about it. What price did you say you were going to give
for the drugget in Mr. Gibson's dining-room, sister?"
So Miss Browning and Molly went on till evening, each chafed and
angry with the other. They wished each other good-night, going
through the usual forms in the coolest manner possible. Molly went
up to her little bedroom, clean and neat as a bedroom could be, with
draperies of small delicate patchwork--bed-curtains, window-curtains,
and counterpane; a japanned toilette-table, full of little boxes,
with a small looking-glass affixed to it, that distorted every face
that was so unwise as to look in it. This room had been to the child
one of the most dainty and luxurious places ever seen, in comparison
with her own bare, white-dimity bedroom; and now she was sleeping in
it, as a guest, and all the quaint adornments she had once peeped at
as a great favour, as they were carefully wrapped up in cap-paper,
were set out for her use. And yet how little she had deserved this
hospitable care; how impertinent she had been; how cross she had felt
ever since! She was crying tears of penitence and youthful misery
when there came a low tap to the door. Molly opened it, and there
stood Miss Browning, in a wonderful erection of a nightcap, and
scantily attired in a coloured calico jacket over her scrimpy and
short white petticoat.
"I was afraid you were asleep, child," said she, coming in and
shutting the door. "But I wanted to say to you we've got wrong
to-day, somehow; and I think it was perhaps my doing. It's as well
Phoebe shouldn't know, for she thinks me perfect; and when there's
only two of us, we get along better if one of us thinks the other
can do no wrong. But I rather think I was a little cross. We'll not
say any more about it, Molly; only we'll go to sleep friends,--and
friends we'll always be, child, won't we? Now give me a kiss,
and don't cry and swell your eyes up;--and put out your candle
carefully."
"I was wrong--it was my fault," said Molly, kissing her.
"Fiddlestick-ends! Don't contradict me! I say it was my fault, and
I won't hear another word about it."
The next day Molly went with Miss Browning to see the changes going
on in her father's house. To her they were but dismal improvements.
The faint grey of the dining-room walls, which had harmonized well
enough with the deep crimson of the moreen curtains, and which
when well cleaned looked thinly coated rather than dirty, was now
exchanged for a pink salmon-colour of a very glowing hue; and the
new curtains were of that pale sea-green just coming into fashion.
"Very bright and pretty," Miss Browning called it; and in the first
renewing of their love Molly could not bear to contradict her. She
could only hope that the green and brown drugget would tone down the
brightness and prettiness. There was scaffolding here, scaffolding
there, and Betty scolding everywhere.