Breakfast was always the same. Oatmeal porridge, which Valancy loathed¹, toast and tea, and one teaspoonful² of marmalade. Mrs. Frederick thought two teaspoonfuls extravagant—but that did not matter to Valancy, who hated marmalade, too. The chilly³, gloomy little dining-room was chillier⁴ and gloomier than usual; the rain streamed down outside the window; departed Stirlings, in atrocious, gilt⁵ frames, wider than the pictures, glowered⁶ down from the walls. And yet Cousin Stickles wished Valancy many happy returns of the day!

 

“Sit up straight, Doss,” was all her mother said.

 

Valancy sat up straight. She talked to her mother and Cousin Stickles of the things they always talked of. She never wondered what would happen if she tried to talk of something else. She knew. Therefore she never did it.

 

Mrs. Frederick was offended with Providence⁷ for sending a rainy day when she wanted to go to a picnic, so she ate her breakfast in a sulky silence for which Valancy was rather grateful. But Christine Stickles whined⁸ endlessly on as usual, complaining about everything—the weather, the leak in the pantry, the price of oatmeal and butter—Valancy felt at once she had buttered her toast too lavishly—the epidemic⁹ of mumps¹⁰ in Deerwood.

 

“Doss will be sure to ketch them,” she foreboded.

 

“Doss must not go where she is likely to catch mumps,” said Mrs. Frederick shortly.

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