“What can be the matter with her?” Nora said. “Her eyes look as if she had been crying. I wonder if Gussie has been worrying her again.”
Before Kitty had time to reply, Gussie was seen coming towards them. “Kitty,” she said, raising her voice, “I want to introduce Miss Aspray and her sister. They are so anxious to know us, and they seem so very nice! You know, of course, who they are—the Americans who live at the corner of our street.”
“But what would mother say?” asked Nora. “You know, Augusta, she doesn’t want us ever to make acquaintance with people that she herself does not know.”
“Oh! I can’t help that now,” said Augusta. “Here they are coming to meet us. Don’t you think we might ask them to tea?”
The two girls now approached the tent. Flora, the elder, looking prettier and more full of spirit than any one Kitty had seen for a long time, held out her hand.
“How do you do, Miss Richmond?” she said. “Constance and I know you quite well by sight. We have often looked at you four girls with great envy; and just now, when we found Miss Duncan standing by herself on the sands, it seemed almost too good to be true. She seemed to us, in this outlandish, out-of-the-way spot, to be quite an old friend. May we join you; or will you join us? Mother is having a grand picnic on the rocks round the other side of the bay, and I know she will be delighted to see you all. Will you come or not?”
Augusta’s eyes were sparkling, and she evidently longed to accept the Asprays’ invitation. But Nora, drawing herself up, said in her very quiet tone, “We shall be pleased if you will join us. We are just having tea on the sands; it is not a regular picnic.”
“But quite too lovely!” said Constance. “Of course we will stay—only too glad. And is this your tent? How charming!” As she spoke she entered the tent, and flung herself down on a large cushion covered with an Oriental brocade. “Dear, dear!” she said, “you do seem to enjoy things.”
“Of course we do,” said Kitty, viewing her with some disfavour. “Why else should we come to the seashore?”
“Do you live in that nice place which I see through the trees?”