“Cannibals,” prompted King, as she paused for lack of a sufficiently opprobrious name.
This made the girls giggle, and they at once began to eat each other, in dumb show.
But Miss Larkin saw nothing humorous in the situation.
“I don’t see how I can have those people,” she went on. “I invited them, thinking you children would at least act fairly decent, and now as you’ve begun this hoodlum business, I just know you’ll keep it up and mortify me to death.”
“No, we won’t,” declared King. “Honest and truly, black and bluely, Miss Larkin, we’ll begin now, and we’ll be as good as pie—custard pie!”
“Mince pie!” supplemented Marjorie.
“Lemon meringue pie,” said Kitty, rolling her eyes, as she thought of a lovely big one even now on the pantry shelf.
“If I could only trust you,” said Miss Larkin, sighing. “But I can’t. You’re too uncertain.”
“Oh, no, we aren’t,” said King, sidling up to her, and patting her shoulder. “And, anyway, after a bang-up tussle, like that, we’re always better’n ever, for a long time.”
“Yes, we are,” corroborated Kitty; “it’s what Father calls the clam after the storm. Oh, Miss Larkin, we will be good!”