"No, you, Molly, because you're the elder," Felicia replied; "oh, yes, please do!"
And seeing her cousin really wished it, Molly officiated at the tea-table, and felt very important and happy as mistress of the ceremonies.
"There are several gipsies' caravans on the common outside the village," Mr. Renford announced by-and-by. "I noticed some gipsy women selling brushes and tinware at the cottages; I must warn the servants not to encourage them here. I hope they won't stay long in the district, for I'm not partial to gipsies."
"Oh, I think they're rather nice!" said Molly; "such a dear little gipsy boy came to the back door of the Vicarage yesterday to beg a drink of water. I was in the kitchen at the time, and cook gave him a glass of milk. He was so grateful. And when I was out in the evening with father, we met two gipsy men, and they spoke very civilly. But I did not know they had encamped on the common. How I should like to see the inside of a caravan, shouldn't you, Felicia?"
"Yes," assented Felicia eagerly; "couldn't we walk to the common by-and-by, and have a look at the caravans?"
"Certainly not," said Mr. Renford decisively; "I forbid you to go near the common, for the less one has to do with gipsies the better. I have a shrewd suspicion that they sup off game from my preserves every night, for they have several lurchers with them, I notice; and lurchers, as a rule, are not kept to do nothing—they earn their living, you may depend. Gipsies are always thieves."
"Isn't that rather a sweeping assertion?" Mr. Guy asked carelessly.
"Well, perhaps it is," his father admitted; "but I mistrust them. I suppose they are waiting about to attend some fair in the neighbourhood."
Mr. Renford did not inquire why Doris was not with her sister, and both Molly and Felicia were relieved that he did not. A very pleasant, two hours were passed under the arbutus tree, and when Molly returned to the Vicarage she could talk of nothing but the happy afternoon she had spent.
"And I poured out the tea," she told Doris; "Felicia made me. Wasn't that nice of her? If you had been there, of course you would have done it. It was silly of you to stay away; you missed such an enjoyable time. Uncle Guy was as nice as anyone possibly could be, and he looks so much better and brighter than he did a few weeks ago; and grandfather was in splendid spirits, too, only he seemed rather put out because some gipsies have encamped on the common. Felicia wanted to go and look at the caravans, but he forbade her to do so."