Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be the
busy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was not
willing, but that when she _was_ at leisure she looked as though she
always had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambric
morning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of little
fancy slippers,--(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; she
had half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, and
beading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on to
any stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body,
in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at the
last point of morning freshness,--chairs and tables and books in the
most charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower in
vase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among the
others, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and to
receive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be as
likely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her
"points,"--as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak at
the heels and going at the sides, and kept their original character
only by these embellishments upon the instep,--and to have dumped
herself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind the
green blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in some
irresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend.

Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and would
stay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, with
unexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater in
the other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation."

Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or if