"What's the use of a holiday, unless we may spend it with our Mothers?" said Sybil.
"That's all that we want a holiday for," said Serena, "that we may be with you all day."
"Yes," said Gatty, "this is most jolly, and now you may have one side of the big Mother, and Sybil shall have the other; Serena shall sit behind her, and I'll sit here," throwing herself down at our feet with such force that we both sprang up with pain.
"How do you like this lark's life?" said I, laughing.
"Good lack, girls, do you mean to say that you are going to be such geese, as to sit here all day? Have you no curiosity to examine those caves, no wish to discover figs and plums, no ambition to get on the top of that rock?"
"No," said Sybil, "our curiosity is at a low ebb, our wishes are quite fulfilled at being seated here, and we have no ambition but to remain."
"Indeed, Miss Sybil, your tongue runs very glibly, but if you think I am going to stand the bore of the company of you girls all day you are mistaken, and, good lack, look at my handkerchief, with a hole in it a dog could get through."
"Indeed, I beg your pardon, little Mother," said Gatty, reddening all over, "I thought it was mine."
"And, does that make the matter any better? Can't you employ your fingers any better than making holes in your handkerchiefs?"
"It's a way larks have," said I.