Three Bright Girls
A Story of Chance and Mischance
9781465647955
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Pop! "There's one!" cries an excited voice. Pop! bang! "There's another! look, two! and both on my side," exclaims an equally eager though older voice. "Here, Doris, you just sheer off to your own side and pick up your own, if you've got the pluck to risk burning those white fingers of yours;" and casting contemptuous glances at the hands in question, the speaker, a bright, handsome boy of about thirteen, dives down upon the rug and commences making sundry ineffectual snatches at several chestnuts which are lying smoking and gleaming amongst the cinders. "Not so fast, good sir," cries the owner of the white hands, following her brother's example and, despite her seventeen years, prostrating herself beside him. "White or black, I bet you twopence I pick them up quicker than you. Here, Molly, hold the plate. Now, Dick, start fair, you know. Oh! there's another!" And thereupon commences a hot skirmish, in every sense, over the nuts, which by this time are besprinkling the hearth pretty freely: so hot and energetic, in fact, that the other occupants of the room wisely retire from the contest, contenting themselves with looking on, and exploding with laughter now and again at the suppressed exclamations indicative of the warm nature of the undertaking. A breathless silence for at least two minutes, then, flushed with victory, Doris rises from the floor and is about to lay her plate on the table, when, lo! another loud pop. Whereupon Dick rushes over with great violence to the spot where his sister is standing, and knocking against her in his efforts to reach the prize first, Doris loses her balance, and clutching wildly at the back of a chair which Daisy is sitting on and tilting back comfortably, down come Daisy, chair, Doris, and nuts, all in an indiscriminate heap on the floor. Loud exclamations arise on all sides, and a pitiful howl is wrung from Daisy, who has planted her hand, in falling, on an almost red-hot chestnut. Doris does not attempt to get up, but, still sitting where she has arrived in such summary fashion, she rates Dick soundly for his ungallant behaviour, her voice subsiding into a sort of wail as she concludes with the remark, "And now I suppose I shall have to do my hair again, you wretched boy. I can't appear before every one like this. Look here!" and giving her head a shake forward, down comes the pretty erection of golden curls which half an hour ago had crowned so becomingly the small neat head. "Bless me!" exclaims the incorrigible boy, "I quite forgot my lady is to grace the festive board downstairs to-night. But don't you tell me, Miss Doris, that you wouldn't have done your hair again anyhow! I know what a time girls take dressing, and my name is not Dick Merivale if you don't spend a good hour this evening pranking and prinking before the glass." "Help me up, Dick, and don't talk so much," says Doris, quietly ignoring this tirade; "and now, if you have quite finished and will be kind enough to let Honor speak, I shall be glad. To my certain knowledge she has been trying to make herself heard for the last five minutes." The noise having now subsided, a clear, gentle voice is heard from the neighbourhood of the fireplace, where Honor is kneeling beside the afflicted Daisy and examining the small burn caused by the hot chestnut. "I was only saying, Doris, that if Lane is too busy with mother to help you I will turn lady's-maid and do your hair and dress you. Molly, do put down that poker." "You're a dear!" exclaims impetuous Doris throwing her arms round Honor's neck. "I would ever so much rather you helped me than Lane. She's so prim and fussy. Where is Lucy, though?—mother will not want them both." "O, I meant to tell you. Her sister is worse again, so mother let her go home to see her.
