Robin Redbreast: A Story for Girls. Molesworth Mrs.

about having you and Bessie for my best friends, for Jacinth and Aunt Alison think you're the nicest girls here.'

      Margaret coloured with pleasure, but with some shyness too.

      'I'm glad they think we're nice,' she said; 'and I'm sure, if your aunt knew father and mother, they'd think we should be far, far better than we are, at least than I am. I don't think Bessie could be much better than she is. But a good many others of the girls are very nice indeed; they are none of them not nice, except that Prissy Beckingham talks too much and says rather rude things without meaning it, and Laura French certainly has a very bad temper. But she's always sorry for it afterwards. And who could be nicer than the Eves or Honor Falmouth.'

      'I don't know them much; they're too big for me, you see,' said Frances. 'Of course I'd know them better if we were boarders. Do you like my gray frock, Margaret? It's the first day I've had on anything but black for such a time; it does feel so funny.'

      'I think it's very pretty, and you've got such a beautiful sash!' said Margaret admiringly. 'But I always think you and Jacinth are so nicely dressed, even though you've been in black all the time. Bessie and I can't have anything but very plain frocks, you know. Mother couldn't afford it, for we're not at all rich.'

      'I don't fancy we are, either,' said Frances; 'I shouldn't think papa would stay out in India if we were. But at Stannesley, where we lived before, granny always got us very nice dresses: she used often to send to London for them. I don't believe Aunt Alison will care so much how we are dressed. Do you have an allowance for your gloves, Margaret? We do. I got a new pair yesterday, but I'm afraid they're not very good; where are they, I wonder? Oh yes, here in my pocket; there are little whity marks in the black kid already, as if they were going to split.'

      She drew the gloves out, as she spoke, but with them came something else – a doubled-up, rather soiled white card.

      'What's this?' said Frances, as she unfolded it. 'Oh, I declare! Just look, Margaret – it's an old Christmas card of last year. I remember one of the children gave it me at the Sunday school, and I've never had this frock on since. Isn't it strange?'

      She stood looking at the card – an ordinary enough little picture of a robin on a bough, with 'Merry Christmas' in one corner – a mixture of sadness and almost reverence in her young face. 'Last Christmas' seemed so very long ago to Frances. And indeed, so much had happened since then to change things for herself and her brother and sister, that it did naturally seem like looking back to the other side of a lifetime to recall the circumstances which then surrounded them. How well she remembered that very Sunday, the last of the old year; how they had chattered and laughed as they ran home over the frosty ground, and Uncle Marmaduke, who had just joined them, had predicted skating before the week was out! How tenderly granny had kissed them that night when they went to bed, with some little remark about the ending of the year, and how the next morning she was not well enough to get up, anxious though she was in no way to cloud or damp their enjoyment; and how the doctor had begun to come every day, and then – and then – The tears started to Frances's eyes as she seemed to live through it all again, and for a moment or two she did not speak; she forgot that Margaret was standing beside her with sympathising face.

      'Dear Frances,' she said, 'does it remind you of something sad? Has it to do with when you went into mourning?'

      'Yes,' said Frances, 'it was soon after last Christmas that granny – our grandmother that we lived with – got ill and died, you know, Margaret. It's for her we are still in mourning.'

      'And you were very fond of her, of course?' said Margaret.

      'Very, very,' said Frances.