“The potatoes,” answered Elizabeth. “I tried them, and I am quite sure they are done, so now we shall not mind about the peas.”
“I had forgotten the blessed things entirely. Fetch them along, Elfie, but don’t burn yourself. I have a ticklish job here in getting this precious omelette dished. My heart is in my mouth. Don’t watch me, there’s a good child. If I should drop it I should be ready to weep.”
Elizabeth laughed and went off to take up the potatoes with a long fork. They were rather black on the outside but when opened showed themselves white and mealy within. Then they fell to enjoying their feast to the fullest. Elizabeth thought she had never tasted a better dinner and praised her friend’s skill as a cook. When it was disposed of and the dishes washed, they suddenly discovered that it was quite late and that they had been hours over the preparation, the eating and the clearing up. To be sure there had been much joking and laughing, some dilly-dallying, and all that.
“Dear me,” cried Elizabeth, “I had no idea how late it was. I must go.”
“Oh, but it is raining so hard. You’d better wait a few minutes,” Mr. Kemp dissuaded her.
It was raining very hard, and Elizabeth waited. Mr. Kemp began telling her a fascinating tale and, what with his interest in the telling and hers in the listening, the moments passed unheeded until it was finished. Then Elizabeth sprang to her feet. “It is dark,” she cried. “Oh, Mr. Titian, I should have gone long ago.”
“I will see you home, never fear,” he said. “We’ve had a great day, Elfie, haven’t we?”
“Oh yes, we have,” she could truthfully say, but her conscience smote her when she remembered that she was only to spend the morning. She wondered what excuse she could give. It had rained, to be sure, but not steadily, and she could easily have taken the walk, rain or no rain; but she did not voice her thoughts to Mr. Kemp, but cheerfully trotted along with him under an umbrella, and he left her at her own door with a merry word of farewell.
Elizabeth paused for a moment in the hall after she entered the house. She heard voices upstairs. There was a light in the sitting-room, but no one was there. She took off her things, hung them up, and gathered up her school books, taking them to the sitting-room, by the table of which she sat down.
Presently she heard a voice from the doorway saying: “Elizabeth, where have you been all day?”