“No, and it might be all the better if they did,” flashed Eileen; “and, another thing, I think you’ve got real spoilt since you came up here, with your stuck up, grown-up airs, for a kid of your age.”
“Oh, come in Eileen, before you two start fighting!” said Mollie, with a laugh.
“Fighting!” echoed Willie. “Pshaw, I wouldn’t fight with a girl!”
They all met again before teatime, and chased round with the pet lambs, and climbed the fence of the calf-pen, and gazed at the little calves, and tried to coax out the chickens from under their mother’s wing, where they were nestled for the night.
“They’re such little beauties,” said Mollie. “Little fluffy golden ones and speckled and snowy white and brown, and some are real black.”
“Oh, the darlings!” said Eileen; “I’ll see them all in the morning.”
“An’ tometimes we ’as fosts in de mornin’s,” said Baby, clasping her chubby hands; “no fosts in Tidney?”
“No, you darling,” cried Eileen, “it’s as mild as butter down there. Oh! but I’m glad to be back again, for all Sydney’s niceness, and I’ll never, never, never grumble any more at the bush or the quietness or the work or anything else. I’m never going to grumble again as long as ever I live.”
“Oh, dear!” gasped Doris, shaking her head solemnly and looking in wonder at Eileen.
“Oh, dear!” said Eva, in tones of surprise.