What a merry pic-nic now! Hannah, the cook’s, preparation of that basket was, indeed, a labor of love.
Such rolls, with a “plenty of butter!” Such “a many chicken-wings” and “drumsticks” to be picked!
Oh, Mamma! could you have the heart to deny poor Hannah the pleasure of “smuggling” in those tiny gooseberry tartlets?
Good old Hannah! it was the thought of the pleasure those unusual dainties would give the tired travellers, which moistened your eye as you stowed the basket in the carriage at the door, for you dearly love those bairnies, and have welcomed each one into the world of sorrow and gladness as you did the Mother-bird, in your younger days; and those dainty morsels are messages from your big heart, your own simple way of telling them how dear they are to those they have left behind. How you would have enjoyed the little dialogue which followed the swallowing of the last crumb!
Jack speaks: “Rosie, if I was a great King, I would have Hannah for my wife, and eat gooseberry tarts all day long, and Sundays too, and never stop.”
“Sister Daisy,” breaks in Rosie, “do you suspect if the misshenries should give the heathen-crocodiles plenty of gooseberry tarts, they would eat such a many childerns?”
Sister Daisy is, just now, occupied in peering under the napkin’s folds, if, perchance, an extra tart might be there concealed, and wondering if it would be her duty to divide it with all the little ones, so she replied, with some tartness in her tones,—
“How foolish! if you will talk sense, I will answer you,” and Jack replies meekly for his companion—
“Little folks can’t always tell sense, Sister Daisy.”