“Oh, no,” said Aunt Molly. “You have no especial reason for staying in the cottage if a pleasanter plan offers itself. Take the goods the gods provide, and be thankful.”
“And I do hate to cook,” confessed Marguerite. “It’s all very well for Hester and Marjorie. They can put a bone in a kettle of water, set it on the fire, and wag a bay-leaf at it, and behold a delicious soup! But I follow carefully that grimy old cookery-book, get out all the utensils in the cupboard, and stew myself into a salamander, and then I’ve only an uneatable mess as the result.”
“Never mind, my pretty parlor-maid,” said Marjorie; “some are born cooks—that’s me; some achieve cooks—that’s Mrs. Lennox; and some have cooking thrust upon them—and that’s what we’ll do after to-morrow. Now let’s write up the annals.”
“Who’ll write up the annals of our sojourn at Mrs. Lennox’s?” said Betty.
“Past or future?” queried Nan.
“Oh, past! We’ll all do the future ones when we get there.”
“Let’s leave the annals of the Pendered party to do after we get there, too,” proposed Millicent; “we’ll have more time and can do them better.”
All agreed to this; so Hester took the “Whitecap” and said she’d wind up the cottage annals in short order; which she did, with this result:
Of the merriment and laughter,
Of the jolly jokes and jesting,