Pretty Marguerite was a little too much in evidence for a parlor-maid; but she was so anxious to see as much as possible of the interesting English ladies that she couldn’t keep properly in the background. Her reward was a withering glance from Lady Pendered as she drove away, and an overheard remark that “Miranda’s servants were all admirable except that yellow-haired popinjay.”
But when the carriage containing the Ladies Pendered was entirely out of sight Mrs. Lennox’s manner underwent a decided change, and the girls realized for the first time how much she, too, had been masquerading.
“You’re perfect dears!” she cried. “Let me kiss you—the whole lot of you! It was the most wonderful success! And I rather think I impressed Mary Pendered with our American superiority in some ways at least. Girls, I shall never forget your kindness. You were trumps—absolute trumps. Now listen to me, my dearies. I have to go to the city to-morrow to get a new staff of servants, though I can assure you they’ll never give me such fine work as you girls have done. But that was fairyland, and we must now drop back to a prosaic reality in the matter of housekeeping. Now this is what I want you to do. Go back to your cottage for a couple of days, and then shut it up and come to stay with me as my guests for the rest of the time you are at Long Beach.”
“Oh, Mrs. Lennox,” cried Marguerite, “how lovely that would be! The housekeeping at the cottage was fun in some ways; but I’d far rather stay in this lovely home, and not cook my own meals.”
“Lazy Daisy!” said Marjorie. “But I own up that I, too, am a little tired of the working part of Hilarity Hall.”
“And well you may be,” chimed in Betty, “for you did far more than your share of it.”
“No, I didn’t,” declared Marjorie. “But as president of the Cooking Club I move we accept Mrs. Lennox’s invitation with heartfelt gratitude, and that a copy of these resolutions be engrossed and framed and presented to the lady in question.”
“Aye, aye!” cried seven voices; and Mrs. Lennox beamed with delight at the anticipation of the frolics of these young girls in her somewhat lonely house.
So the good lady went to New York, and the girls trooped back to Hilarity Hall and told Aunt Molly all about it.
“It seems a bit like defeat,” said Hester, who always liked to carry out successfully anything she undertook.