"Sometimes I wonder where I am," she said, moved by the impulse of the moment to confide in her little sister. "I don't believe I get on very fast. I'm always losing my temper, and that means dirtying my frock."
"And then you have to wash it," said Bumps cheerfully.
"Yes," said Jill, with a light in her eyes; "I can do that, at least I can ask to have it done, but—" and here she relapsed into gloom again. "I sometimes wonder if it is ever clean for more than a minute!"
Wednesday came, and the three children sadly tried Miss Falkner's patience at lessons.
She closed books at last, and sent them out into the garden to play before their early dinner. They longed to go into Mona's portion of the grounds, but the head gardener kept them back. Tents were being erected; servants bustled about, and Mona herself, with Miss Webb and one or two gentlemen, seemed to be superintending everything herself.
At four o'clock Jill and Bumps, arrayed in their best white frocks, were down on the front lawn awaiting the arrival of guests. Miss Falkner in a pretty grey dress and hat stood talking to Miss Webb under the trees, and Mona, looking radiant in her youth and loveliness, dressed like her little sisters in pure white, with a spray of delicate pink roses in her breast, was talking and laughing with a few of her house guests. Jack presently came up to his sister. He was dressed in his white sailor-suit, and looked stiff and uncomfortable.
"Oh, Jill, I say, do let's get out of this. It's so dull and proper. You and Bumps look like the china figures on the school-room mantelpiece."
"Yes," said Jill; "it is very dull. Where shall we go?"
"Let us see how Bethel is getting on."
So the three made their way to the fir plantation, but met with several interruptions on the way. Jack chased a fowl which had escaped from the poultry-yard. Bumps would insist on stopping to watch the peregrinations of two frogs in some long grass, and Jill had a talk with Sam, who was cutting down a young tree. As they trod softly on the brown pine-needles underfoot Jack startled his sisters by a shrill whisper.