“Nonsense! Don’t bother your pretty curly head. Here let us all take our composing draught and then wend our way to school with a bold front. Only we must have some other hats.”
“I’ll wear my Gainsborough, and you, Phil, shall have my brown turban with the bunch of plumes. Louie—”
“Let me wear the black straw with those yellow daisies. I almost grudge that to you.”
“Then take it as a Christmas gift.”
The cook stopped them in the hall and said they must have a cup of hot chocolate. The wind was blowing up cold.
Then they started home in very good spirits. It was well they had changed their headgear. Mrs. Dane sat in the hall looking over some mail. She glanced up and nodded, but she had some suspicions and she meant to see who came home wearing a light blue Tam.
Zay flung her borrowed article on Miss Arnold’s bed. She had not come home from the musicale yet.
Lilian Boyd had gone out for her usual walk. She wanted to see some pretty things Claire was making for Christmas, but before she reached the corner she saw Edith Trenham coming rapidly from her mother’s, so she halted.
“Oh, Lilian—don’t go. You can’t see Claire—”
“Is she ill?” in affright.