"You must be careful what fields you go into, children, for some of them are set aside for hay, and you would be doing sad mischief if you went wandering about there."
"Had not you better go with them and show them where they may go and where not?" said their mother.
"Yes," said Colonel Graham, "we will all go together this afternoon, Mama and all, later in the day, I mean when it is cooler."
"May not we go out now?" asked Milly.
"No, dear, it is too hot; besides, you have not put your books and things away tidily in your room. I thought you both had decided on making your room pretty and keeping it so."
"So we did. Let us go and do it now, Lena, while Lucy has her sleep." For little Lucy always required a sleep in the middle of the day, for however much she wished to be running about, her eyes would grow heavy, and her little feet weary after spending the morning trotting about.
Lena and Milly were very busy in their room when they received a summons to the drawing-room to see Mrs. Freeling, who, with her two girls, had come to call. It was Hester who had come to tell them, and on seeing Lena jump down from the chair she was standing on, so as to enable her to reach the bookcase, where hers and Milly's books were to be kept, she exclaimed—
"Why, Miss Lena, you are not going to leave your work unfinished, now it is so nearly done, are you?"
"We can do that afterwards; I do so want to see Bessie Freeling."
"There are so few books left, you had better put them all tidy; I know you will forget afterwards."