Pauline lifted the box. "It doesn't seem quite heavy enough for books."
"But what else could it be?"
Pauline laughed. "It isn't another Bedelia, at all events. It could be almost anything. Hilary, I believe Uncle Paul is really glad I wrote to him."
"Well, I'm not exactly sorry," Hilary declared.
"Mother can't come yet," Patience explained, reappearing. "She says not to wait. It's that tiresome Mrs. Dane; she just seems to know when we don't want her, and then to come—only, I suppose if she waited 'til we did want to see her, she'd never get here."
"Mother didn't say that. Impatience, and you'd better not let her hear you saying it," Pauline warned.
But Patience was busy with the tack hammer. "You can take the inside covers off," she said to Hilary.
"Thanks, awfully," Hilary murmured.
"It'll be my turn next, won't it?" Patience dropped the tack hammer, and wrenched off the cover of the box—"Go ahead, Hilary! Oh, how slow you are!"
For Hilary was going about her share of the unpacking in the most leisurely way. "I want to guess first," she said. "Such a lot of wrappings! It must be something breakable."