“You say that, mother, because you do not know them.”
“Well, I do know one thing,” continued Mrs. Chetwynd, her eyes filling with tears. “I cannot imagine what I have done to deserve such girls as you two. I have taken no end of pains with you both. Of course I was obliged to stay in India during your father’s lifetime, which prevented my having as much influence over you as I should otherwise have obtained: but I little thought to come back to such a reward as this. I sent you to the best schools I could afford, and have always attended to your wardrobe, and given you plenty of pocket-money. I have done all that a mother could do, and now just when I was beginning to expect my reward, there come back to me a couple of——”
“Tomboys, mother darling,” said Marjorie. She wound her arms still tighter round her mother’s waist, and kissed her on her cheek. “Mammy, you’ll get accustomed to us after a bit,” she cried. “We are not in the ordinary groove; but there are hundreds of girls like us. There will be more girls like us year after year; all the modern training tends to it, mammy, and you cannot keep us back. We are in the van, and in the van we will stay. Mammy, we decline to go into society, we decline to turn night into day, we decline to spend unnecessary money upon clothes.”
“And what do you intend to do, Marjorie; if I may venture to ask?” said Mrs. Chetwynd, folding her hands in an attitude of despair. “Having declined so much, is there anything you agree to?”
“Oh yes, lots, mother, now you are becoming reasonable, and we can talk. First of all, what we want to know is, what allowance you will give us both?”
“Your father made an extraordinary will,” said Mrs. Chetwynd. “I cannot understand what made him do it, and I think he was wrong.”
“What was it? Do let us hear,” said Eileen.
“It was this: By his will, when you leave school and reach the age of eighteen, you are both entitled to one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and you are not to be coerced in the way you spend the money.”
“Hip! hip! hurrah!” cried Eileen. She sprang suddenly to her feet, danced a minute in front of her mother, and then clapped Marjorie on the shoulder.
“Then, of course, everything is plain,” she cried. “We won’t spend any of that money on dress. Who would waste a precious hundred and fifty pounds in stupid things like frocks?”