"I guess so," said Nelly. "I didn't see a boy to-day, not one, when I first went in; and at noon they didn't take any notice of me. Mrs. Clapp says they forget every thing very soon."
"Well, they don't!" said Rob, firing up at this statement about boys; "and Mrs. Clapp needn't think so. I guess I know. You'll see they'll pitch into us again yet,—at least, into me. I dare say they won't bother you. But I'm going in, anyhow. It's too mean."
"I'll ask papa to let you," said Nelly. "We might go in just in time to get in about nine, and we could stay at Mr. Kleesman's at twelve o'clock; and then we needn't see them at all. Say, Rob, do you suppose Ulrica'll care much because I didn't stop?"
"Why, no!" said Rob: "why should she? You saw her in the morning?"
"Yes," said Nelly: "but we always did stop, you know; and she was always standing in the door watching for us, don't you know? I'm awful sorry!"
"Oh, pshaw!" said Rob: "you're always thinking of things, Nell."
It seemed very long to Rob and Nelly before the day came round to go up to Rosita again. It was only two days; but it seemed as much as a week to them both. That is one of the queerest things in this life, I think, that time can seem both so much longer and so much shorter than it really is. Haven't you known Saturday afternoons that didn't seem one bit more than a minute long? I have; and I remember just as well all about them, as if it were only this very last Saturday.
At last the day came. It was Friday, and a lovely, bright day. Mr. March had said that Rob might go too; and both the children were awake long before light, in their impatience to be off.
"It would do just as well if we got up there early enough to be all through with selling things, and get in to Mr. Kleesman's before nine o'clock: wouldn't it, Nell?" said Rob.
"Why, yes," said Nelly, "of course it would. That's splendid. Let's get right up now. It's beginning to be light."