Dolly agreed to this, and the two little martyrs sat for another half-hour.
“Well, if you stay any longer, you must stay to dinner,” said Mrs. Hampton at last. “Do you sit up to dinner at home?”
“We have supper at night,” said Dolly, and her lip quivered a little, for she was beginning to feel anxious about her aunts.
“Well, I have dinner at night,—at eight o’clock.”
“At eight o’clock!” exclaimed Dolly. “Don’t you get awfully hungry before that time?”
“No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Hampton, smiling; “but I’m sure you chickabiddies will. So suppose I give you a nice little supper up in my sitting-room, and excuse you from dinner? I have guests coming, and it isn’t exactly a children’s party, you see.”
“But we’re not going to stay here all night!” exclaimed Dolly in dismay.
“It looks that way to me,” said Mrs. Hampton. “I offered to send you home, and you said no. Now I feel sure your aunts won’t come,—it’s too late for them, and if you’re bound to wait for them, I can offer you supper and pleasant sleeping rooms,—but I can’t invite you to dinner.”
The twins were uncertain what to do. But after all, they had no choice. Aunt Rachel had told them to wait until she came, and Aunt Rachel’s orders were always to be obeyed. To be sure something might have happened to prevent the aunties from carrying out their plan of calling on Mrs. Hampton, but even so, they would have sent for the children. And if they had gone home, they would surely send Michael over for them at once. It wasn’t as if the aunties didn’t know where they were. They had sent them to Mrs. Hampton’s, and told them to wait there. So they waited.
They thought Mrs. Hampton seemed a little annoyed because they waited. But as Dick said to Dolly, “I’m not going to disobey Aunt Rachel for another lady. But all the same, Dollums, I do want to go home.”