Charley and Ronald looked pleased and interested; and both fastened their eyes eagerly upon Winifred, as if to make sure of her meaning.
“Yes, I feel as if I should like to see them, before—I mean I have heard about them and I think it would be nice to know them a little. Do you think they would come?”
“I’m sure they would!” cried Ronald, “they’d like it awfully.”
“Would you like it too?”
“Of course we should. You’re a brick, Winnie, for thinking of it,” cried Charley. “What could have put it into your head?”
Winifred smiled in the quiet way which had grown upon her of late.
“I don’t quite know. I seem to think of a lot of things now.”
“You do,” assented Charley with an emphasis that brought a flush of pleasure to Winifred’s pale face. “You think of everything now. I can’t think what we did before you were well enough to look after our things. I knew they were always in a horrid muddle.”
Winnie smiled and sighed too.
“I wish I’d begun before,” she said, “when I had more time. I wish I hadn’t been so lazy before.”