“I fell in the mud, Mamma,” said the unabashed Lillie, and glanced aside at Tess and Dot with a sweetly troubled look, as though she feared they were at fault for her disarray, but did not quite like to say so!
“Come up here at once!” commanded her mother, who turned to Ruth to add: “I am afraid your sisters are very rough and rude in their play. Lillie has not been used to such playmates. Of course, left without a mother as they were, nothing better can be expected of them.”
Meanwhile, Lillie had turned one of her frightful grimaces upon Tess and Dot before starting for the house, and the smaller Kenway girls were left frozen in their tracks by the ferocity of this parting glare.
Lillie appeared at luncheon dressed in some of Tess’ garments and some of Dot’s—none of them fitting her very well. She had a sweetly forgiving air, which bolstered up her mother’s opinion that Tess and Dot were guilty of leading her angelic child astray.
Mrs. Treble had two trunks at the railway station and Uncle Rufus was sent to get an expressman to bring them up to the Corner House. Ruth paid the expressman.
“Talk about the Old Man of the Sea that Sinbad had to carry on his shoulders!” scoffed Agnes, in private, to Ruth. “This Mrs. Trouble is going to be a bigger burden for us than he was. And I believe that girl is going to be ‘Double Trouble.’ She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Uncle Rufus says she got in that messy condition before lunch, chasing the hens out of their seven senses.”
“There are only five senses, Aggie,” said Ruth, patiently.
“Humph! that’s all right for folks, but hens have two more, I reckon,” chuckled the younger girl.
“Well,” said Ruth, “we must treat Mrs. Treble politely.”
“You act as though you really thought they had some right to come here and live on us,” cried Agnes.