The horses seemed to be enjoying themselves almost as much as the girls. They stepped daintily, throwing back their heads as if they would be pleased if their mistresses would give them leave to be off and away down the road, and expanding their nostrils to catch the scents of the spring-awakened earth. But their mistresses were too deeply engaged in conversation just then to grant them their desire.
“You see,” the fairest of them was saying—the one the others called Carin—“I don’t really want to go to Europe with father and mother this time. It isn’t as if they were going to stay in one place. They’ll be traveling the whole time, because, you see, father is going on business, and mother is going along to keep him company. It wouldn’t be very pleasant, would it, to hear mother saying: ‘And now what in the world will we do with Carin to-day?’ Really, you know, I wouldn’t at all enjoy having my name changed to ‘Little-Carin-in-the-Way.’”
The tallest girl, Annie Laurie Pace, laughed rather enviously.
“Think of giving up a European trip for that!” she cried.
“Oh, indeed, I’ll be only too thankful to go on some other occasion, Annie Laurie, when there’s time to see things or to study. Remember, I’ve gone twice already; once over the same ground that father and mother are going over this time. The next time, I hope to stay and study, but this summer I want to follow the plan we made last summer and go up into the mountains and teach school.”
“Oh, do you really, Carin?” cried Azalea, the third girl. “I’ve wondered and wondered if you’d remember about that! Would your father and mother let you?”
“That remains to be seen. One can always ask. Do you think Ma McBirney would give you permission, Azalea?”
“Oh, I think she would. The trouble with Ma McBirney is that she’s likely to say ‘yes’ whether my going makes it hard for her or not.”
“But didn’t she plan,” broke in Annie Laurie, “to visit her cousin down Calhoun way? Pa McBirney will be going too, won’t he?”
“I don’t think he could leave the stock and the farm. But you see, I thought maybe Mother McBirney would want to take me along to—”