"Mother says," Pauline reported presently, "that Patience may go this time—only we'll have to wait while she gets ready."
From an upper window came an eager voice. "I'm most ready now!"
"She'll never forget it—as long as she lives," Shirley said, "and if she hadn't gone she would never've forgotten that."
"Nor let us—for one while," Pauline remarked—"I'd a good deal rather work with than against that young lady."
Hilary came down then, looking ready and eager for the outing. She had been out in the trap with Pauline several times; once, even as far as the manor to call upon Shirley.
"Why," she exclaimed, "you've brought the Folly! Tom, how ever did you manage it?"
"Beg pardon, Miss?"
Hilary shrugged her shoulders, coming nearer for a closer inspection of the big lumbering stage. It had been new, when the present proprietor of the hotel, then a young man, now a middle-aged one, had come into his inheritance. Fresh back from a winter in town, he had indulged high hopes of booming his sleepy little village as a summer resort, and had ordered the stage—since christened the Folly—for the convenience and enjoyment of the guests—who had never come. A long idle lifetime the Folly had passed in the hotel carriage-house; used so seldom, as to make that using a village event, but never allowed to fall into disrepair, through some fancy of its owner.
As Tom opened the door at the back now, handing his guests in with much ceremony, Hilary laughed softly. "It doesn't seem quite—respectful to actually sit down in the poor old thing. I wonder, if it's more indignant, or pleased, at being dragged out into the light of day for a parcel of young folks?"
"'Butchered to make a Roman Holiday'?" Shirley laughed.