“I wouldn’t mind being out of school,” said Alice. “Think of having no lessons to get and staying in that lovely room with a wood fire on the hearth, and everybody coming to see you.”
“You wouldn’t like it a bit if you didn’t feel well,” said Peggy. “Think of not being able to go coasting.”
The children went to see Diana almost every day, and there did not seem to be any room quite so pleasant as Diana’s room, with the fire on the hearth and the blooming flowers.
Diana was often well enough to be downstairs in the parlor, and this was a pleasant room, too. It seemed strange to the children to think it was their own old parlor, for it was so differently arranged. There was a large piano at which Diana practiced when she was well enough. It took up the side of the room where their mother’s writing-desk had been. Their piano was an upright one, and it had been on the opposite side of the room. Small as it was, it almost filled up one side of their tiny parlor now. It had been used very little since it had gone to its new surroundings, for there was no longer any money for music-lessons, and Mrs. Owen had been too busy to touch it; besides, she had never played a great deal, except the accompaniments for her husband’s singing. So the piano was resting. But Mrs. Owen had determined that, just as soon as she had got ahead a little, the children should have their music-lessons again.
Alice’s birthday came in February, and when her mother asked her what she would like best, in the way of a celebration, she did not hesitate a minute.
“I should like to have Diana come the night before and spend the whole day.”
“Don’t you want any one else?”
“No one else,” said Alice, “except you and Peggy, of course. I never have played dolls all I wanted to, because Peggy doesn’t like to play, and so, on my birthday, I’d like to have just a feast of dolls, from morning until night.”
“But there will be your school,” said her mother. “I couldn’t let you skip that.”
“Couldn’t you? I thought perhaps you could.”