"Yes," added Cricket, pulling a long face, "and on Tuesday morning Eunice and I will be wearing the garbage of woe."
"Whatever you rig yourself up in, Miss Scricket," said Archie, amid the general laughter, "don't deck yourself out in garbage. You'd be a public nuisance. Flowing 'robes of porcelain,' like the heroine of one of your stories, would be better."
"You needn't tease me about that, for you know as well as anything that I meant percaline."
But Auntie Jean and grandma had to enjoy this alone, for the boys were not equal to the fine distinctions of girl's apparel.
As Eunice said, there was a decided scattering of their little party. Hilda left Saturday afternoon, the boys departed on Monday, for their camp in the Maine woods, with a party of friends, and on Tuesday Edna had to go for her usual fortnight's visit to her grandmother Somers, who always spent July and August at Lake Clear. She was a very old lady, much older than Grandma Maxwell, and a good deal of an invalid. Edna much preferred staying with her cousins, but Grandmother Somers was very devoted to her only little granddaughter, and this was the particular time when she wanted her. Edna had never been there without her mother before, and really dreaded it. She had urged taking her cousins with her, but [Auntie Jean knew] this would be altogether too much responsibility for so old a lady to have, since she herself could not leave Marbury.
"I hate to go like poison," sighed Edna to Eunice, as they strolled up and down the station platform, while waiting for the train. "I wish I could stay here. I wish grandma wasn't so fond of me. I wish you could come, too. I wish the two weeks were over. I wish—"
"Toot-to-toot!" whistled the approaching train.
"Horrid old thing! I wish it would run off the track! Wish Mrs. Abbott would forget to start this morning. She isn't here yet. Do you suppose she's forgotten?" with sudden hopefulness.
Mrs. Abbott was a lady under whose care she was going.
"No such good luck!" murmured Eunice. "There she is now. Write to me every day, Edna."