“It will be too quiet, I am afraid,” sighed Miss Virginia. “I do like to hear a little something going on, here all alone as I am, though not children’s voices.”
Miss Virginia Warren did not mean to be selfish, but she had never learned that there is something sweeter in life than taking anxious care of one’s health and thinking about one’s self.
Ben had seen Betty and Elsa on their way home from school and told them; so they were there all ready to start when Miss Ruth came down-stairs in her long, black, fur-lined coat.
Mrs. Danforth had surprised Elsa that noon by saying: “Elsa, when you are with your little Club, and all of you want to do anything together, like going to the Convalescent Home, you may do it without coming to ask me; and you may stay a little later than five o’clock if coming away earlier would spoil your good time.” Elsa felt very grown-up, with this new freedom, and yet the first use she made of it was to run home to tell her grandmother that the Club was to meet at Alice’s! It happened, however, that Mrs. Danforth was out driving; and then Elsa felt more than ever grateful to her grandmother, because, as she explained to Miss Ruth, “If grandmother hadn’t said I could do anything the Club wanted to, I couldn’t have gone to Alice’s, because grandmother wasn’t at home to ask.”
Betty listened intently, but wisely kept still. She was dancing around in great impatience for the start; she had on a long gray fur boa of her mother’s, and as there had been no one to remind Elsa to wear something extra warm, Miss Ruth bundled her into the dark red golf cape.
Soon the little party set forth,—to Miss Virginia’s horror, though she waved her hand feebly in return to the merry farewells from Miss Ruth and Elsa on the back seat of the pung, and from Betty perched up beside the blue-coated driver of the loose-jointed horse.
Ben began clucking his steed into a faster gait.
“What a good, steady horse you have, Ben,” said Miss Ruth; and indeed the horse was pulling well on the road toward home.
“It’s a good thing to have a horse that will stand and that people aren’t afraid of,” Ben said loyally. “I can do anything with this horse. G’long, Jerry!”