“I’m sure there are plum tarts in it,” she said aloud. “Dulcie always makes plum tarts on Thursday mornings.”
In order to find out Roxy lifted the cover of the basket, drew out the white napkin that was so carefully folded over the contents, and looked in.
“Yes, indeed! Two apiece!” she exclaimed.
“Well, Polly can’t have even a taste!” she said, and helped herself to one of the flaky puffs that was well filled with delicious plum jelly. It was so good that Roxy promptly began on a second and had soon finished a third, then remembering that it was not yet the middle of the morning and, unless she went directly home, she would soon be hungry again, she reluctantly pushed the basket away, and now her unhappy thoughts about Polly again filled her mind.
“I wish there was another girl to play with,” she thought a little mournfully, and suddenly exclaimed: “Oh! There are other girls! There’s the three little Hinham girls! And their father asked me to come and see them. I’ll go now!” And Roxy jumped up and seized her hat. “I guess it wouldn’t look very polite to carry a lunch,” she decided, and so ate the remaining plum tart and one of the spice-cookies.
“I’ll come after the basket on my way home,” she resolved, and turned back and crossed the pasture to the highway. She knew where the Hinham house stood, a low, rambling building with shabby barns, nearly a mile below the bridge where she had encountered the mounted soldiers, but she had never seen the three little girls whom she had now set out to visit; but their father had come to the Miller farm one day on business, and on seeing Roxy had said that he had three little girls and that Roxy must come and see them; and Grandma Miller had politely responded that she hoped the three little Hinham girls would come and visit Roxy.
As Roxy now trudged along the road, keeping on the shady side, she remembered this, and told herself that Grandma Miller would be pleased when she heard of the visit.
“Maybe I’ll ask the little Hinham girls to come to Grandma’s birthday party, and I can tell them about my paper circus. I guess Polly Lawrence will find I don’t have to play with her,” she thought, but someway even the prospect of three new little girls as possible friends and playmates did not make Roxy wholly happy. The remembrance of Polly’s radiant smile, of the plan of signalling from the upper windows, all the jokes they shared together and that no one else knew, crept into her mind and made the distance to the Hinham house seem very long, and when Roxy came in sight of the lane that led up to the farm buildings she was not only tired but very hot and thirsty.
“Oh, dear! I hope they’ll ask me if I don’t want a drink of water,” she whispered to herself, as she left the highway and started up the lane.
But Roxy had gone only a little way when the sharp bark of a dog, quickly echoed by several others, made her stop suddenly and as she looked up the lane she saw a number of dogs come dashing toward her. Their barks sounded very threatening to the tired little girl, and for a moment Roxy was tempted to turn and run, but she was too tired, and she quickly remembered that these dogs must belong to the Hinhams and, as there were three little girls in the family, the dogs would not be surprised to see another little girl, so Roxy walked bravely on toward them.