Page 53 - An Australian Lassie

CHAPTER XIII

"TF T WERE ONLY YOU!"

The third Saturday and Sunday before the ending of term, Dorothea spent with her "intimate" friend, Alma
Montague.

Alma's home was a very beautiful one at Elizabeth Bay, and, as Dot told her mother, there were parlour-maid,
housemaid, kitchen-maid and every other sort of maid there.

Dot slept in one of the visitor's rooms, and had a bathroom and a sitting-room opening off her bedroom for her
exclusive use. The sitting-room and bedroom were "treated" with the same colouring--a tender wonderful
shade of blue. The wall paper was just suggestive of blue; the ceiling was delicately veined with blue; the
curtains were, Dot felt certain, blue. The easy chairs and the lounge, the footstools and the cushions were dull
blue.

Such a beautiful room.

Again, in the bedroom, there were delicate suggestions of blue among the whiteness.

And the bathroom! How different in every way from the little wooden unlined room at home. There the
ceiling-joists were gracefully festooned with cobwebs, the floor had many a great hole in it, caused by white
ant and damp. No water was laid on--only a tap came from a tank outside, which in its turn was fed from an
underground well. And whenever Dot wanted a bath she had to coax or bribe Cyril or Betty to work the pump.
Dot herself hated working the pump--it blistered her little hands.

Here the floor was leaded the walls tiled, the bath itself painted a delicate sea blue. There was a square of
carpet just beyond the edge of the lead; a cushioned chair, two hospitable taps, one offering cold, one hot
water. All sorts of toilet luxuries were at hand, pretty coloured soaps, loofahs, lavender-water, ammonia,
violet powder, violet scent.

No wonder poor Dot was in an ecstasy with her surroundings, and that she roamed round her rooms and
sighed with happiness because she was here, and with sorrow because she was going away in two days.

On Saturday morning she and Alma went shopping. They breakfasted alone at nine o'clock, Alma's father
being in his consulting-room and her mother in bed (she had been at the theatre on Friday evening and Dot
had not even seen her).

So the two girls lingered over a very dainty breakfast table till nearly ten o'clock, when Alma suggested
"shopping."

Dot had only two frocks, besides her morning pink print with her. One was a blue muslin that had to last her
for next week at school; the other was a white muslin and her best. She had taken them out of her dress-basket
and hung them carefully in her pretty wardrobe, and now that Alma spoke of shopping she was in miserable
doubt which to wear.

"T'm going to wear a blue," said Alma, "you wear yours, too, Thea dear, and then people will think we are
sisters. Sisters! Oh, don't T wish T had a sister!"

Dot, who possessed three, shook her head as she handled her muslin dress.

"T think it's very nice to be the only one," she said. "The only child! Tt's lovely!"