On Sunday morning she looked very beautiful in a dress of foulard, silky and sweeping, and blue as a jay-bird's feather, and in a large cream hat covered with many roses, mostly crimson. Nobody could admire her enough. But in the evening, when she was going out, she asked again:
`Chubby, have you got my gloves?'
`Which?' asked William.
`My new black suède.'
`No.'
There was a hunt. She had lost them.
`Look here, mother,' said William, `that's the fourth pair she's lost since Christmas--at five shillings a pair!'
`You only gave me two of them,' she remonstrated.
And in the evening, after supper, he stood on the hearthrug whilst she sat on the sofa, and he seemed to hate her. In the afternoon he had left her whilst he went to see some old friend. She had sat looking at a book. After supper William wanted to write a letter.
`Here is your book, Lily,' said Mrs Morel. `Would you care to go on with it for a few minutes?'
`No, thank you,' said the girl. `I will sit still.'
`But it is so dull.'
William scribbled irritably at a great rate. As he sealed the envelope he said:
`Read a book! Why, she's never read a book in her life!'
`Oh, go along!' said Mrs Morel, cross with the exaggeration.
`It's true, mother--she hasn't,' he cried, jumping up and taking his old position on the hearthrug. `She's never read a book in her life.'
`'Er's like me,' chimed in Morel. `'Er canna see what there is i' books, ter sit borin' your nose in 'em for, nor more can I.'
`But you shouldn't say these things,' said Mrs Morel to her son.
`But it's true, mother--she can't read. What did you give her?'
`Well, I gave her a little thing of Annie Swan's. Nobody wants to read dry stuff on Sunday afternoon.'
`Well, I'll bet she didn't read ten lines of it.'
`You are mistaken,' said his mother.
All the time Lily sat miserably on the sofa. He turned to her swiftly.
`Did you read any?' he asked.
`Yes, I did,' she replied.
`How much?'