Marian hesitated. “Smugglers’ Island! That is a long way off. We couldn’t be ready by to-morrow; it is late now.”
“We don’t need anything but a lunch. I don’t mean to get up a party. Just us go. We don’t need to go to a lot of fuss.”
If Marian had an especial weakness, it was her brother Delbert. She was proud of that spirited, handsome little face, and rarely clouded it by a refusal if a consent was possible. Besides the sister love she gave him in common with the other children, there was a desire to make up to him the loss of a companion brother who had died a few years before, a brother a little older than Delbert, but of much the same cast of features.
Now she thought, “Why not? Why think one must make elaborate preparations for every little pleasure, when the children would enjoy it as well, maybe better, without?”
She laughed. “Here come the girls,” she said. “We’ll put it to a vote.”
The little girls, Jennie and Esther, came up the path. Jennie was eight, a puny, thin little shadow, with eyes that seemed much too big because the face was so thin and colorless. She had been born a sickly baby and had averaged at least one illness every year of her life since, and had never known what actual health was. When Mrs. Hadley had decided to accompany her husband on his business trip to Guaymas she had thought seriously of taking Jennie with her, though she had had never a moment’s uneasiness at leaving the other three in their sister’s care. But it had seemed a pity to take the little girl out of school, where she was doing well; and also there was a good American doctor in town, whom Marian promised faithfully to send for at the first symptom of anything wrong; so, as Jennie herself did not seem to care about going, it was finally decided she should stay.
Esther, the six-year-old, stood in pleasing contrast to her sister. Having never known sickness, she was a sturdy, robust little specimen, as plump as the baby David, dimpled and rosy, with curly hair that was forever getting into her bright eyes.
Delbert was dancing with delight. “Girls, girls,” he squealed, “listen, quick. All in favor of going to Smugglers’ Island to-morrow, signify by saying ‘Aye.’”
“Aye, aye, aye!” he yelled; and Esther, taking her cue, also launched a myriad of “ayes,” but Jennie shook her head in grave disapproval.
“You are too ev’lastin’ noisy,” she said. “Marian, we are not going in the launch, are we?”