“And you didn’t do anything else?” pursued Margot.
“Well, what else could I do?” inquired Stella impatiently. “I’ve had enough of too much doing, I can tell you, Margot. Mother’ll tell dad, of course, when he gets home, and he’s sure to go. What would you have done yourself, Margot, as far as that goes?”
“I don’t know,” said Margot slowly, staring at her own reflection in the glass with unseeing eyes; “but I’d have had to do something!”
“I think it was jolly brave of Stella not to be frightened when the pony shied and all that,” interposed the head of the dormitory, tactfully; “and I say, talking about bravery, has anyone thought of anything?”
But nothing in the way of conversation on any topic was to be got from Margot and Gretta, and if nurse had been told how long it was before the former fell asleep that night she would certainly not have believed it. Truth to tell, the impression made on Margot’s mind by Stella’s story had been such as to call up all her strongest sympathies, and she lay awake weaving plan after plan that might be tried to relieve the imagined sufferings of the inhabitant of the “Little House,” only to throw each one aside as she realized that it would be quite impossible to work from school. “Oh, those rules!” she murmured to herself; and just before she fell asleep: “Oh, if Long Jake was only here!”
Temporary relief appeared in the morning, however, in the shape of little scraps of paper, which were handed round to all the older girls in the sitting-room directly after breakfast.
“They’re for your lists, you know,” said Helen, who was officiating. “Write down how much you want to spend, and what you’d like for the feast, and then give them in to me, and I’ll give them to Miss Read. She’ll see that the things are all right, and that they’re bought. It’ll be best if you do it according to dormitories, and then you won’t all write the same things!”
Accordingly, four pigtailed heads from Dormitory 3 met in solemn conclave in one corner of the sitting-room, and, as a result, evolved a menu that would have caused the most hardened gourmand to gasp and gasp again.
“Sardines!”—this from Margot; “and French rolls, new ones, to eat with them.”
“Meringues—large ones with lots of cream”—this Josy’s choice; “and if they have those éclairs with yellow custard in them, three of those!”