“Let’s invade him,” said Patty. “The old dear wants his exercise; he hasn’t had any to-day.”
The eight girls ran with whoops and cries round the house. Penelope picked her grasses with more determination than ever. Her small, straight mouth made a scarlet line, so tightly was it shut.
“I am only seven, but I’m monstrous clever,” she whispered to herself. “I am going to have my own way. I’ll love poor Aunt Sophy. Yes, I will. I’ll kiss her, and I’ll make up to her, and I’ll keep her room full of lovely grasses.”
Meanwhile the other girls burst into the study. A voice was heard murmuring rapidly as they approached. A silvery-white head was bending over a page, and some words in Latin came like a stream, with a very beautiful pronunciation, from the scholar’s lips.
“Ah, Verena!” he said, “I think I have got the right lines now. Shall I read them to you?”
Mr. Dale began. He got through about one line when Patty interrupted him:
“It can’t possibly be done, Paddy. We can’t listen to another line—I mean yet. You have got to come out. Aunt Sophia is coming to-day.”
“Eh? I beg your pardon; who did you say was coming?”
“Aunt Sophia—Miss Tredgold. She’s coming to-day on a visit. She’ll be here very soon. She’s coming in an old cart that belongs to Farmer Treherne. She’ll be here in an hour; therefore out you come.”
“My dears, I cannot. You must excuse me. My years of toil have brought to light an obscure passage. I shall write an account of it to the Times. It is a great moment in my life, and the fact that—— But who did you say was coming, my dears?”