With a concerted movement, the little party of “young people” now advanced to the tea-table. Martha set about filling cups and handing sandwiches and cake. With the munching every one began to unbend.
A rather tall girl with dark curls who looked even more serious than the others seated herself beside Rose.
“I am Deborah, the Rector’s eldest daughter,” she said quietly. “Perhaps you have never been in the house of a Rector before? It is a great pity that my honoured father is absent or you might be permitted to go in and curtsey to him. Peter ...” this somewhat sharply, addressing a slender lad in a blue coat with waistcoat and trousers of nankeen, who had pulled Ruth’s curls and was smiling mischievously as she looked from one side to the other, trying to catch her tormentor in the act.
“Deborah,” he returned, mincingly.
“Leave off your teasing ways,” she said, shaking her head. “He is a bad, wild boy, Ruth, if he is my own brother.”
“I don’t mind,” asserted Ruth, and she fixed a daring eye upon him. “Come near enough and I’ll pull your curls ... since you have them!”
He laughed, and took a seat beside her. Deborah turned back to Rose, who was looking curiously around at the circle of proper little maidens who were eating and drinking so very, very nicely, and seeming so exceedingly staid and grown-up.
“Don’t you ever make a noise?” she asked Deborah.
“Why should we make a noise?” Deborah’s face expressed genuine amazement.
Rose sighed. She began to feel an irresistible impulse to leap up and give one good yell—Red Indian yell, she muttered to herself.