her sums so well,” she said; “but it is because she creeps up here, too, and I help her.” She glanced round the room. “The attic would be rather nice—if it wasn’t so dreadful,” she said, laughing again. “It’s a good place to pretend in.”
The truth was that Ermengarde did not know anything of the sometimes almost unbearable side of life in the attic and she had not a sufficiently vivid imagination to depict it for herself. On the rare occasions that she could reach Sara’s room she only saw the side
beauties in the room which she herself would not have suspected the existence of.
“It is so little and so high above everything,” she said, “that it is almost like a nest in a tree. The slanting ceiling is so funny. See, you can scarcely stand up at this end of the room; and when the morning begins