“But we’ll help you, Poll,” said all the eager voices. “Let’s fetch our purses and see what we can spare.”
In a twinkling many odd receptacles for holding money made an appearance, and the children between them found they could muster the noble sum of six shillings. All this was handed to Polly, who said, after profound deliberation, that she thought she could make it go furthest and make most show in the purchase of cream and ginger-beer.
“I’ll scrape the rest together, somehow,” she said, in conclusion, “and Maggie will help me fine. Maggie’s a real brick now, and her brains are growing beautifully.”
But there was another point to be decided—Who were to be invited to partake of the supper, and was Nurse to be told, and was Helen to be consulted?
Certainly Polly would not have ventured to carry out so daring a scheme without Helen’s consent and cooperation, if it had not happened that she was away for the day. She had taken the opportunity to drive into the nearest town five miles away with her father, and had arranged to spend the day there, purchasing several necessary things, and calling on one or two friends.
“And it will be much too late to tell Nell when she comes back,” voted all the children. “If she makes a fuss then, and refuses to join, she will spoil everything. We are bound too, to obey Helen, so we had much better not give her the chance of saying ‘no.’ Let us pretend to go to bed at our usual hour, and say nothing to either Nurse or Helen. We can tell them to-morrow if we like, and they can only scold us. Yes, that is the only thing to do, for it would never, never do to have such a jolly plan spoilt.”
A unanimous vote was therefore carried that the supper in the garret was to be absolutely secret and confidential, and, naughty as this plan of carrying out their pleasure was, it must be owned that it largely enhanced the fun. The next point to consider was, who were to be the invited guests? There were no boys and girls of the children’s own class in life within an easy distance.
“Therefore there is no one to ask,” exclaimed Katie, in her shortest and most objectionable manner.
But here Firefly electrified her family by quoting Scripture.
“When thou makest a supper,” she began.