“No. We understand, don’t we, girls?” said Margery.
“All right, then,” said Eleanor. “Girls, Margery is Acting Guardian while I’m gone. You’re all to do just as she tells you, and obey her just as if she were I. I see that Tom’s got the buggy all harnessed up. It’s lucky they were able to save their wagons and their horses, isn’t it!”
“What are you going to do in Cranford!” asked Dolly. “Won’t you tell us, Miss Eleanor?”
“No, I won’t, Dolly,” said Eleanor, laughing. “If I come back with good news—and I certainly hope I shall—you’ll enjoy it all the more if it’s a surprise, and if I don’t succeed, why, no one will be disappointed except me.”
And then with a wave of her hand, she sprang into the waiting buggy and drove off with Tom Pratt holding the reins, and looking very proud of his pretty passenger.
“Well, I don’t know what it’s all about, but we know just what we’re supposed to do, girls,” said Margery. “So let’s get to work. Bessie, you and Dolly might start picking out the boards that aren’t too badly burned.”
“All right,” said Dolly. “Come on, Bessie!”
“I’ll pace off the distance to see how big a place we need to make,” said Margery. “Mrs. Pratt, how far is it to a part of the woods that wasn’t burned? Miss Mercer thought we could get some green branches there for bedding.”
“Not very far,” said Mrs. Pratt, with a sigh. “That’s what seemed so hard! When we drove along this morning we came quite suddenly to a patch along the road on both sides where the fire hadn’t reached, and it made us ever so happy.”
“Oh, what a shame!” said Margery. “I suppose you thought you’d come to the end of the burned part?”