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Updated: June 12, 2025
"Anyway," concluded Lilac, "he's been kind, and I'll thank him as soon as ever I can." Her sympathy for Peter made her own trouble seem less, and she went downstairs cheerfully with her mind bent on managing a little talk with him as soon as possible. Supper-time would not do, because Bella and Agnetta were there, and afterwards Peter was so sleepy. It must be to-morrow.
Something decidedly annoying, for she snapped even at her darling Agnetta when she asked questions. "Don't bother," she said, "let's have tea. I'm tired out." During the meal her daughters cast curious glances at her and at each other, for it was a most unusual thing for their mother to bear her troubles quietly. As a rule the more vexed she was the more talkative she became.
The expression of intelligent modesty which had made Lilac look different from other girls had gone; she was just an ordinary pale-faced little person with a fringe. "There!" exclaimed Agnetta triumphantly as she drew a small hand-glass from her pocket; "now you'll see as how I was right. You won't hardly know yerself." Lilac took it, longing yet fearing to see herself.
"So I didn't say nothing," continued Lilac, "because he looked so hard at me that I was skeert-like. So then he says very impatient, `Don't you understand? I want you to come here in that frock and that bonnet in your hand, and let me paint you, copy you, take your portrait. You run and ask Mother." "I never did!" exclaimed Agnetta, moved at last. "Whatever can he want to do it for?
It was, she knew well, a useless ambition, but she could not help desiring it, Agnetta was such a beautiful object to look upon, with her red cheeks and the heavy fringe of black hair which rested in a lump on her forehead.
"I couldn't ever bear to look Mother in the face." "Has she ever told you not?" "N-no," answered Lilac hesitatingly; "leastways she only said once that the girls made frights of themselves with their fringes." "Frights indeed!" said Agnetta scornfully; "anyhow," she added, "it 'ull grow again if she don't like it." So it would.
She'll never make half such a good Queen as you, and I dessay you'll look every bit as fine now, when you're dressed." "I don't want no strawberry jam," said Agnetta sullenly, kicking at the leg of the table. "Mercy me!" said poor Mrs Greenways with a sigh, "everything do seem to go crossways today."
There was a look in Lilac's small white face which made it impossible to speak to her in the old patronising tone; it was as though she had been somewhere and seen something to which Agnetta was a stranger, and which could never be explained to her.
And this was specially the case at school, for there she met Agnetta Greenways every day, and Agnetta was the object of her highest admiration; to be like her in some way was the deep and secret longing in her mind.
Like Agnetta she had a great deal of colour, frizzy black hair, and a good-natured expression, but her face was just now clouded by some evident vexation. "Lor', Bella," said her mother, turning round from the hearth, "put away them fal-lals do. Here's Peter wanting his tea, and your father'll be along from market directly."
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