"A band!" cried Lucy. "O Milly, do let us go and hear it closer—do come;" and she pulled her sisters in the direction from which the sound came.
"Mama might not like us to go; and besides, Lucy, there are such lots of people there," said Milly.
Lena did not at all approve of this speech of Lucy's. It was not Milly's permission she ought to have asked, but hers. She was the eldest, and had already said that she would take care of them, or, as she would have expressed it, "had promised Mama to take care of them." And besides, she knew the place, and was at home here, which Millicent certainly was not.
So, as soon as Milly had spoken, she said—
"Why shouldn't we go? The people won't hurt us. Come along, Milly," she added impatiently, as the latter drew back.
"But, Lena, Mama didn't give us leave. She said we might go to the beach, and"——
"And so we are going. We can go down to it near the band, and Lucy can hear it, as she wants to so much."
"Yes, I do want to," said Lucy, dropping Milly's hand and going forward with Lena.
"We shall hear it just as well down here, and it will be much nicer on the rocks than among all those people."
"It's because you are shy and afraid. You want Lucy not to hear it."