“No, but the Carlisle people will,” retorted Felicity, in a tone which implied that what the Carlisle people thought was far more important. “And I don’t believe that Peter has got a decent stocking to his name. What will you feel like if he goes to church with the skin of his legs showing through the holes, Miss Story Girl?”
“I’m not a bit afraid,” said the Story Girl staunchly. “Peter knows better than that.”
“Well, all I hope is that he’ll wash behind his ears,” said Felicity resignedly.
“How is Pat to-day?” asked Cecily, by way of changing the conversation.
“Pat isn’t a bit better. He just mopes about the kitchen,” said the Story Girl anxiously. “I went out to the barn and I saw a mouse. I had a stick in my hand and I fetched a swipe at it—so. I killed it stone dead. Then I took it in to Paddy. Will you believe it? He wouldn’t even look at it. I’m so worried. Uncle Roger says he needs a dose of physic. But how is he to be made take it, that’s the question. I mixed a powder in some milk and tried to pour it down his throat while Peter held him. Just look at the scratches I got! And the milk went everywhere except down Pat’s throat.”
“Wouldn’t it be awful if—if anything happened to Pat?” whispered Cecily.
“Well, we could have a jolly funeral, you know,” said Dan.
We looked at him in such horror that Dan hastened to apologize.
“I’d be awful sorry myself if Pat died. But if he DID, we’d have to give him the right kind of a funeral,” he protested. “Why, Paddy just seems like one of the family.”
The Story Girl finished her turnover, and stretched herself out on the grasses, pillowing her chin in her hands and looking at the sky. She was bare headed, as usual, and her scarlet ribbon was bound filletwise about her head. She had twined freshly plucked dandelions around it and the effect was that of a crown of brilliant golden stars on her sleek, brown curls.