'Perhaps so,' owned Wilmet, disappointed; 'but Angel is too little for such a long day, and Cherry is so much stronger, that I thought—'
'Oh, but could not Alice Knevett go?' put in Cherry.
'A very good suggestion,' said Felix. 'She hardly ever has any amusements. Well thought of, White-heart!'
I believe he thought of it from the first, felt Geraldine, angry with herself that this conviction gave a prick like the point of a needle. She threw her energies into the scheme, and was begging Wilmet to go and make the proposal, when there was a sudden peal of the bell, a headlong trampling rush, a dash open of the door—Theodore began to hum the anthem 'How beautiful,' the other three small ones hailed 'Lance' at the top of their voices, and his arms were round the neck of the first sister who came in his way.
'What, Lance! how came you here?'
'Our organ is tuning up its pipes—man comes to-morrow—Prayers in the Lady Chapel and not choral, and it's a holiday at school, so I got off by the 5.20, and need not go back till the 6.10 to-morrow. We are practising our throats out to lead you all on the 3rd. You know you are coming, the whole kit of you.'
'Do we?' said Wilmet. 'It is only for the last ten minutes that we have known that any of us were coming.'
'All right; that's what I'm come about. Robina must be got home.'
'She will be come. She comes on the 1st.'
'That's right; then there's to be a great spread in Bishop's Meads between services. Everybody sends provisions, and asks their friends; but Cherry is to go and rest at the Harewoods'. The governor will get her in through the library into the north transept as quiet as a lamb, no squash at all. It is only along the cloister—a hop, step, and jump; and Miles has promised me the snuggest little seat for her. Then the Harewood sofa—'