“No, indeed!” cried Marjorie. “We are not going to allow a boy in sight all the time we are there. Tell them we’re sorry to refuse, but we’re not running a co-educational institution, and only girls need apply.”
“I did tell him that, but he begged me to ask you again—”
“No,” said Marjorie, laughing but positive; “tell him we turn a deaf ear—I mean sixteen deaf ears—to his entreaties, and harden our eight hearts to his appeal. There is no use, girls; if the boys come down they’ll spoil everything; don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” said each girl, but with such varying accents that Mrs. Bond laughed heartily, while Marguerite shook her yellow curls and protested that she didn’t want the boys anyway, even if they did bring candy.
Then she and Nan went home, and Jessie Carroll said: “We’ll have plenty of candy, Marjorie, for father will send it down whenever I want him to.”
“Oh, Jessie, that will be fine! It will be just like boarding-school when the boxes come from home,” said Hester Laverack, who had returned from Helen and her refractory tea-things. Hester was an English girl who had only been in America about a year, and was not yet quite accustomed to the rollicking ways of the rest of the club. “I think,” she went on slowly, “I may take my camera down, if you like; it’ll be rather good fun to take pictures of us all.”
“Yes, indeed; you must take your camera,” said Marjorie. “What larks! We’ll have jolly pictures. And if Helen takes her banjo we can sing songs and have concerts, and—oh, dear, the time won’t be half long enough!”
“Send me up a picture of the group when you’ve spoiled your dinner in the cooking, and haven’t anything to eat,” said grandma, slyly.
“Now, Grandma Cassandra, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Marjorie; “but you can’t dampen our spirits with your dire prognostications; we have too much confidence in our own capabilities. Skip along, girls; I’m going to get ready now, and we’ll all meet at the station.”
The crowd scattered, and Millicent Payne said: “Well, I’m the last little Injun, and I reckon I’ll go too, and then there’ll be none.”