“I wish you’d go on swinging, Nancy,” said Pennie impatiently, “you only interrupt.”
“Oh, all right!” said Nancy. “I thought you wanted us to listen. I don’t like the beginning at any rate.”
She launched herself into motion again, but Pennie was uneasily conscious that she could still hear every word, and though she explained her plan as well as she could, she felt she was not doing it justice. She got through it, however, without any further interruption.
“Wouldn’t it be nice,” she said after dwelling on Miss Unity’s attachment to the mandarin, “if we all saved up some money and put it into a box, and when we got enough if we all bought a new mandarin, and all gave it her? I wanted to do it by myself, but I never could. It would take too long.”
She looked anxiously at her hearers. No one spoke at first. David seemed entirely occupied in picking out the choicest bits of parsley and carrot for Goliath, his biggest rabbit; but at last he said moodily:
“Ethelwyn broke it.”
“Mean thing!” exclaimed Nancy’s voice on high.
“Yes, I know,” murmured Pennie.
“Then,” continued David, “she ought to pay for a new one. Not us.”
“But she never would,” said Ambrose. “Why, I don’t suppose she even remembers doing it.”