CHAPTER VI
A DIFFICULT DAY
Aunt Deborah did not linger to talk with her little niece, for it was a part of her belief that idle talk was unwise. The door had hardly closed behind her when Winifred's head appeared from under the chintz valance of the bed, and she looked cautiously about.
"Has she gone?" she asked in a cautious whisper.
Ruth nodded, and Winifred now crawled out from her hiding-place.
"I'm glad she didn't see me, Ruth. For when I came to the door this morning she said you could not see any one to-day; so I thought you were being punished, and I was bound to see you. Oh, Ruth! are you to have nothing but porridge?" and Winifred looked at Ruth's tray as if she thought such a dinner would be punishment enough for a much greater offense.
"I chose it! I said I would eat only porridge," responded Ruth, beginning to think that perhaps she had been more severe with herself than had been really necessary; and she wondered, with a little regretful sigh, if Aunt Deborah was having stewed oysters for dinner; for Ruth was sure that nothing could taste better than oysters.
"I had to see you, Ruth; and it was Gilbert who thought of the ladder. He has written a play, and you are to take part in it, and so am I," continued Winifred, who had nearly forgotten her own important news in listening to Ruth's surprising story.
"'A play'?" echoed Ruth questioningly, hardly understanding her friend's meaning.
"Yes! Yes! Don't you know that the English soldiers give plays in the Southwark Theater? They dress up and make believe, just as you did last night," Winifred explained, "and Gilbert's play is like that."