CHAPTER XI
THE SPARE ROOM BLANKETS
‘I’ve thought of a splendid game for this afternoon,’ announced Micky, as the children were finishing dinner. ‘We’ll find Diamond Jubilee, and go to the Feudal Castle to play it, for it’s a Feudal Castle game. Diamond Jubilee is to be an awfully ragged, dirty pilgrim come back from the Crusades, and Kitty and I will be quite rude to him at first; but when the Lady of the Castle—that’s Emmeline—sees him (you will come, won’t you, Emmeline?), you’ll fling your arms round his neck and cry, “Here is my long lost son!” for your mother’s heart will tell you directly who he is.’
‘Oh, Micky! I think that’s a silly game,’ said Emmeline. ‘Diamond Jubilee really isn’t clean enough for anyone to fling their arms around his neck. I hope you didn’t get very close to him in the summer-house last night?’ she added anxiously.
‘Oh no! He rolled up in one blanket and I rolled up in the other,’ Micky assured her. ‘But how fussy you are getting! I think it’s horrid of you first to adopt him and then not want us to play with him, just because he’s rather dirty.’
‘Don’t be so silly and exaggerating, Micky. I only didn’t want you to play at that sort of game. I think it will be a very good plan if you take Diamond Jubilee to the Feudal Castle and play at something sensible there, for it may get him used to the place before to-night.’
‘But I don’t want to play at something sensible,’ persisted Micky. ‘I want to play at what I said.’
‘I know what!’ broke in Kitty, who was always a peacemaker. ‘Emmeline can be a stepmother; then she won’t have to fling her arms round his neck.’
‘My game was better,’ grumbled Micky, ‘but I suppose if Emmeline won’t be the mother, she’ll have to be the stepmother.’
‘I don’t know whether I shall be able to be anything,’ said Emmeline. ‘You see, I want to get the blankets to the Feudal Castle this afternoon, because I think Diamond Jubilee might settle down there if once his blankets were there, and of course I shall have to wait and watch for a chance of getting them out when nobody’s looking.’