Meg lifted her head.
“We will eat nothing but the eggs for breakfast,” she said, “and go without lunch—if we can. Perhaps we can’t—but we’ll try. And we will not go into some of the places we have to pay to go into. I will make up stories about them for you. And, Robin, it is true—everybody has something to give. That’s what I have—the stories I make up. It’s something—just a little.”
“It isn’t so little,” Robin answered; “it fills in the empty place, Meg?” with a question in his voice.
She answered with a little nod, and then put her hand on Ben’s arm again. During their rapid interchange of words he had been gazing at them in a dazed, uncomprehending way. To his poor little starved nature they seemed so strong and different from himself that there was something wonderful about them. Meg’s glowing, dark little face quite made his weak heart beat as she turned it upon him.
“We are not much better off than you are,” she said, “but we think we’ve got enough to take you into the grounds. You let us have your bed. Come along with us.”
“To—to—the Fair?” he said, tremulously.
“Yes,” she answered, “and when we get in I’ll try and think up things to tell you and Robin, about the places we can’t afford to go into. We can go into the Palaces for nothing.”
“Palaces!” he gasped, his wide eyes on her face.
She laughed.
“That’s what we call them,” she said; “that’s what they are. It’s part of a story. I’ll tell it to you as we go.”