“You’ll only be away three days, Davie,” said Pennie, looking up from her book; “we can manage to take care of Antony that little while I should think.”
“Well,” said David, “Nancy’s got to be ’sponsible, because I took care of her mouse.”
“If I were you,” said Ambrose with a superior air, “I wouldn’t use such long words; you never say them right.”
“I say,” interrupted Pennie, putting down her book, “what do you all like best when you go to Nearminster? I know what I like best.”
“Well, what is it?” said Ambrose; “you say first, and then Nancy, and then me, and then David.”
“Well,” said Pennie, clasping her knees with much enjoyment, “what I like best is going to church in the Cathedral in the afternoon. When it’s a little bit dusky, you know, but not lighted up, and all the pillars look misty, and a long way off, and there are very few people. And then the boys sing, and you feel quite good and just a little bit sad; I can’t think why it is that I never feel like that in our church; I suppose it’s a cathedral feeling. That’s what I like best. Now you, Nancy.”
“Why,” said Nancy without the least hesitation. “I like that little Chinese mandarin that stands on the mantel-piece in Miss Unity’s sitting-room, and wags its head.”
“And I like the drive back here best,” said Ambrose, “because, when we’re going there’s only Miss Unity to see at the end; but when we get here there are all the animals and things.”
“I don’t call that liking Nearminster. I call it liking home,” said Nancy. “Now, it’s your turn, David.”
“I don’t know what I like best,” said David solemnly. “I only know what I like least.”