I kissed Nassius on the cheek.Ah, I’m so happy! Patience didn’t stop me, so this was probably a normal part of their mornings.
“Does that mean we can play together?” Henry, my younger brother, asked. He had the same blond hair and blue eyes as I did; we both took after our mother.I need to make sure he doesn’t die young.
“Yes, let’s play,” I said, picking Henry up and kissing him on the cheek.This is bliss!
My happiness didn’t last for long.This is gross! I thought as I ate some bland soup with some minuscule vegetable bits floating around, along with some thinly sliced yet hard bread.Patience is so skinny! She does notneed to be dieting. Also, I can’t believe this is the best breakfast we can afford for my brothers! Growing children need to eat! How horrible!
Patience’s ingrained elegance forced me to slowly sip my soup, but it didn’t have enough flavor to be savored. I had to find out whether Eva, our cook, was just unskilled, or if our family’s finances were so tight that this was the only kind of meal we could afford.
I finished my unsatisfying breakfast and wanted to stay in the slightly warmer dining room, but that didn’t seem possible. As soon as breakfast was over, my father retired to his study and my brothers were taken to their room. Not only was I alone, but George, the servant, began scraping out the logs that hadn’t burned from the fireplace. Staring at an unlit fireplace wasn’t going to make me any warmer.
According to Patience’s memories, the morning was time for studying. Of course, we didn’t have something as fancy as a tutor. Oh, Patience’s memory corrected me—she appeared to have had a tutor for a short while when she was younger. The Granger family had probably lived as nobles usually did before our father had lost his job. Following his dismissal, my mother had taught me my letters and numbers, and then...That’s right! I’m responsible for teaching my brothers!
I rushed over to my brothers’ room.Teaching my little brothers sounds fun! Their room was spacious and had a desk with three chairs in front of a fireplace.Yeah, they don’t need a room this big. A poor excuse of a fire was lit in the fireplace.This is too cold for them!