“We haven’t had it so much lately,” explained Babe, and departed in haste to finish dressing.
“And I never told her I was sorry she was going,” she reflected as she brushed her hair. “Oh, dear, it’s dreadful to have something on your mind!”
Madeline refused to give her hostesses much idea of “the most fascinating tea place.”
“I’ve never been there,” she said, “but the woman who sits next me at dinner said it was awfully jolly. It’s out at Robinson, a little suburban place. There are cafés in the trees, and you climb up as high as you like among the branches and enjoy the prospect and the tea.”
“But mother could never climb up in a tree,” protested Babbie.
“You don’t climb trees,” explained Madeline placidly. “You climb stairs to little landings built among the branches, just like the ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ house. That’s what gives the place its name.”
The Robinson party, which as a matter of course included John and Mr. Dwight, started out the next afternoon in high spirits. A short train ride brought them to Robinson, where they found a feature that Madeline’s informant had not mentioned—sleepy little donkeys waiting to carry them up the hill to the tree-top cafés. To be sure Madeline and Mr. Dwight, in their eagerness to secure the top story of the very tallest trees for the party, abandoned their donkeys half-way up and went ahead on foot, with the result that they discovered it to be a very hot day, much more suitable for lemonade than for tea.
“But we’re giving you a tea-drinking,” objected Babe, when they were seated around the table on the top platform, with the green of the trees to shelter them from the western sun and yet not hide the wonderful view of Paris and the country between. “I shall have tea anyway.”
“Have it iced,” suggested John, but Babe shook her head.
“Regular tea,” she insisted.