The girls ran upstairs and began to search in their mother’s room, but nowhere, high or low, could they find the missing key. They questioned the servants, and begged them to have a good search for it, and presently, absorbed by other matters, forgot the circumstance.
Meanwhile Augusta was putting on her gayest and most becoming costume.
When Nancy put her sad little face round the door and said “I am going with you, Gussie,” just for a moment Augusta’s conscience did give her a sharp prick.
“You are good-natured,” she said, “and I won’t forget it. Put on something nice. Wear your pretty white dress and your white hat. You look so nice all in pure white!”
Nancy nodded and went off to her room.
“She is a good-natured little soul,” thought Augusta. “It will be much nicer for me to go with her than alone. If by any chance anything is said, she must naturally take her share of the blame. What a blessing that tiresome captain put off his visit till to-night! I only wish, for my part, he would put it off altogether. Now, do I look best in pink or blue? Pink, I think. Pale pink suits almost any one. My white hat with the blush-roses will look sweet with this frock. I don’t want those handsome girls to outshine me. Now I fancy I’ll do. I shall be quite as smart as they are, and that is all I am going to trouble my head about.”
At a quarter to eleven Augusta and Nancy left Fairleigh, and walked down the dusty road until they came to the cross-roads where they were to wait for the Asprays’ picnic party.
Punctual almost to the moment, a wagonette, a pony-carriage, and a phaeton appeared in sight. The gaily dressed party shouted welcomes to the two girls; and Mrs. Aspray, an exceedingly stout woman with a timid face and a good-natured expression, bent forward and held out her hand to welcome Augusta and Nancy.
“Why, I thought there were four of you,” she said. “Florrie said four.—Didn’t you, Flo? You mentioned four girls; I am certain of it.”
“Yes, mother,” replied Flora; “but you can see for yourself that there are only two waiting for us at the cross-roads.”