"After dinner we are, if Polly can find anything to make furniture of."
Polly's ingenuity did not fail her here, for, by the use of some match ends, birch bark and a needle and thread she contrived all sorts of things and then each girl hunted up a box for a house, so that these new playthings proved to be very fascinating.
But at last the every-day commonplaces grew too dull for Polly, and she suddenly exclaimed: "I'm tired of just visiting and talking about measles and nurses and mustard plasters! I'm going to take the Roseberry family down to the shore. They're going to have an adventure."
"Oh, Polly, what? Can ours go, too?" cried Molly. "I would like to have the Applebys meet an adventure, too."
"And I'd like Mr. and Mrs. Hips to have one," echoed Mary.
"Are they very wicked, black-hearted people?" asked Polly, darkly.
"Why—why——" Mary hesitated and looked to Molly for her cue.
"Do they have to be wicked to have an adventure?" asked Molly.
"If they join the Roseberries, they'll have to be, for the Roseberries are wreckers and smugglers." Polly spoke impressively, and at this flight of fancy Molly and Mary gazed at her admiringly. Yet they were not quite willing that their families should give up their morals to too great an extent.
"What do they have to do?" asked Mary, determined to find out the worst.