“Mother always catches me if I don’t tell things straight,” confessed Betty.
“Papa used to tell me that the only thing he wanted me to be afraid of was of not telling the truth,” Elsa said, her face growing suddenly sad. Her father had died less than a year ago.
At that moment Miss Ruth came into the room with a large plateful of buns,—crisp and tempting and full of raisins,—and soon all three girls were eating with a relish, as children eat, just after school.
“Come!” said Betty, taking up her coat. “We ought to start.”
Alice and Elsa obligingly put on their coats, but Ruth Warren saw that they hesitated, and Betty as much as the others: there was yet a goodly pile of buns left.
“Fill your pockets, girls,” she said. “Sarah will be disappointed if you don’t eat all the buns.” So the three girls filled their pockets, and Alice said shyly: “I will take one to Ben if you don’t mind. O, thank you!”
“Who is Ben?” inquired Ruth Warren, as with a dark red golf cape over her black lace gown, she started forth with the girls for Betty’s home,—Betty hanging upon one arm, while Elsa and Alice walked on the other side.
“Ben is my twin brother,” Alice replied. “He’s ’most always hungry; mother says boys always are.”
“Three plum buns!” exclaimed Betty. Then she repeated in a comical, sing-song voice:
“Three plum buns!