“Oh, mother, I’ll help you another day, but I’m in such a hurry now. Nesta is outside.”
“I wonder what you’ll do without Nesta at the seaside,” said the mother.
“Oh, mother, do you think you could coax father very hard to let me invite Nesta to come with us just for a week—or even for a fortnight? I wish—I wish you would! Do you think it could be managed?”
Mrs Griffiths paused in her work to consider. She was a very frowzy, commonplace woman. She looked out of the window. There stood Nesta, pretty, careless, débonnaire—untidy enough in all truth, but decidedly above the Griffiths in her personal appearance.
Chapter Fifteen.
An Unwelcome Caller.
“I wouldn’t go near her now for all the world,” said Flossie, shrinking back. “Oh, my word, Nesta, do get behind this tree. You’re a perfect fright, you know, in your very oldest dress and your face as scarlet as a poppy. As to me—I wish I’d put on my Sunday-go-to-meeting frock; it isn’t as grand as theirs, but at least it has some fashion about it. But I’m in this dreadful old muslin that I’ve had for three years, and have quite outgrown. It’s awful, it really is. We can’t say anything to them to-day, we must go away.”
“Go away?” said Nesta. “That’s not me. If you’re a coward, I’m not. It’s my way to strike when the iron’s hot, I can tell you. I’ll get into a scrape for this when I get home, and if there’s one thing I’ve made up my mind about, it’s this—that I won’t get into a scrape for nothing. No, if you’re frightened, say so, and sit down behind that haycock. Not a soul will see you there, and I’ll walk up just as though I were one of the guests, and shame Penelope and the others into recognising me.”