"You horrid girl! I haven't caught the cold yet, and I don't mean to!" said Nina, pursuing Connie, who dodged away round the summer house, calling out as a parting shot:
"Be sure to let us know how many bottles of medicine you take!"
"I travelled in the guard's van once," said Jessie Ellis. "Mother couldn't bring me to school herself, and nobody we knew was going to Wales either, so the guard took me with him. I rather liked it. There was such a lovely big window, and he let me look at a kitten that somebody was sending in a basket, and when we stopped at Chester he got me a glass of milk from the refreshment room. I'm going straight to Llandudno to-morrow; we're to stay there for three weeks. My brother's school broke up yesterday, and he's coming here with Father and Mother this afternoon."
"What are you going to do, Marian?" asked Linda.
"I'm not quite sure. We wanted the Isle of Man, but it's such a trouble to take the little ones on the steamer. We have to choose a nice safe place where there's sand for them to dig, and the tide doesn't come in too fast. Gwennie was nearly drowned at Arnside when she was five, and it's made Mother so nervous ever since."
"I'm going to learn the bicycle," said Brenda. "My eldest sister's promised to lend me hers, and lower the saddle. If I can manage well enough to ride on the road I'm to go with Ada and Willie to Ashmere, and that's eight miles off. But father's dreadfully afraid of motor cars. Hazel isn't coming home this summer; Aunt Cicely's taking her a tour in Switzerland. Isn't she lucky?"
All the members of the third class had promised faithfully to correspond with one another, and Sylvia suggested that they should each keep a diary of their adventures, to be read aloud at the next meeting of the S.S.L.U., which had languished during the summer, but which they intended to take up with renewed vigour when the days began to close in once more.
"Everybody must agree to send everybody else at least two picture postcards," said Linda, "and then we can compare them when we come back to school."
"Yes, if one's mother will pay for them," said Connie, who had returned to the lawn. "Mine struck last holidays, and said eleven children all wanting stamps continually was ruining her, and we must buy our own. Postcards are a penny each, and they need halfpenny stamps, so it'll cost exactly one and ninepence to send two to every one of you. I can't possibly afford it! Not if I want any donkey rides or chocolates."
The others laughed. The comfortable assurance that "Mother will pay", held by most boys and girls, had not caused them to think of the expense, and Connie's calculations were startling.