Explore "Silverthorns" by Mary Louisa Molesworth on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A hearty but somewhat unnecessarily noisy welcome awaited them. Arthur, Ted, and Noble were all in the drawing-room with their mother. She had insisted on the muddy boots being discarded, but beyond this, as the boys were tired, and it was late when they came in, she had not held out; and Charlotte glanced at the rough coats and lounging-about attitudes with a feeling of annoyance, which it was well "the boys" did not see. "Mamma" herself was always a pleasant object to look upon, even in her old black grenadine; _she_, thought Charlotte, with a throb of pride, could not seem out of place in the most beautiful of the Silverthorns' drawing-rooms. But the boys -- how can they be so rough and messy? thought the fastidious little sister.
"It is all with being poor -- all," she said to herself.