“Beg pardon, Mr. Seth, but you will not! I will pay myself,” cried Dorothy, eagerly.
“With what, Dolly dear? I thought you were the most impecunious young person of the lot.”
“I am—just now; but I shan’t be long,” answered the young hostess, with a confident wink in Alfaretta’s direction. To which that matter-of-fact maid replied by a contemptuous toss of her head and the enigmatical words:
“Hare pie!”
“Wagons all ready, Mr. Winters!” announced a stable boy, appearing around the house corner.
“Passengers all ready!” shouted Danny Smith, perhaps the very happiest member of that happy Party. Never in his short, hard-worked life had he recreated for a whole week, with no chores to do, no reprimands to hear, and no solitude in distant corn-fields where the only sound he heard was the whack-whack of his own hoe. A week of idleness, jolly companionship, feasting and luxury—Danny had to rub his eyes, sometimes, to see if he were really awake.
“All ready, all?”
“All ready!”
Much in the order of their Sunday’s division they settled themselves for the drive to Newburgh, where the first stop was to be made, except that Molly Breckenridge declared she must ride beside Dorothy, having something most important to discuss with her friend. Also, she insisted that the twins ride with them, on the wagon-bottom between their feet.