One evening, as they were all three sitting cosily in Henry's study,--as
they still faithfully called it,--Esther was reading "Pride and
Prejudice" aloud, while Dot and Mat busied themselves respectively with
"macrame" work and a tea-cosy against a coming bazaar. Esther's tasks in
the house were somewhat illustrated by her part in the trio this
evening. Her energies were mainly devoted to "the higher nights" of
housekeeping, to the aesthetic activities of the home,--arranging
flowers, dusting vases and pictures, and so on,--and the lightness of
these employments was, it is to be admitted, an occasionally raised
grievance among the sisters. To Dot and Mat fell much more arduous and
manual spheres of labour. Yet all were none the less grateful for the
decorative innovations which Esther, acting on occasional hints from her
friend Myrtilla Williamson, was able to make; and if it were true that
she hardly took her fair share of bed-making and pastry-cooking, it was
equally undeniable that to her was due the introduction of Liberty silk
curtains and cushions in two or three rooms.
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