"What ye' doing here?" he asked.
"Aunt Lois is having her portrait painted, and we came with her, and we're just waiting 'til she's ready to go home."
"Oh, then I'll tell you what let's do. Let's have some ice cream! I said I'd treat some day, and I know a nice place. Come!" urged the boy, but they hesitated.
"Don't you want to?" he asked.
"Oh, yes!" they cried, "but we ought to ask Aunt Lois," said Rose, "and we can't. Mr. Kirtland is painting, and he hasn't said a single word for ever so long. It's so still in there that it makes you feel as if you ALMOST mustn't breathe. I wouldn't dare to run right in and ask Aunt Lois!"
"Why, you don't have to. We'll just skip over to the ice cream parlor, and we'll be back long before he's done painting. Come along! If you don't, I'll think you don't want to, and that isn't nice when I've asked you," said Lester. "Oh, dear, it isn't polite to let him think that when I'm wild to go, and I just KNOW Polly is," thought Rose.
"Are you SURE it won't take us long to go, and get back?" Polly asked.
"Oh, it's just a step!" said Lester.
"There's a nice little old lady keeps the place, and she gives you awful big ice creams for five cents. You have 'em on a marble table in her little parlor. There's a green carpet on the floor, and the room is awful cool. Oh, come on! I wish you would."
The invitation was not elegantly expressed, but it certainly was
CORDIAL.