SOME PEOPLE WHO DID NOT FLATTER.
hey were not an agreeable-looking pair; they had evidently been dining, and their faces were sticky. They had also been quarreling, for they cast scowling glances at each other, and were in far too bad a temper to be civil to the newcomer.
"I don't want her to play with us," said Tootsie, and he half turned his back.
"I'm sure then she shan't play with me," said Fanny. "I don't wish to play with anyone, I'm sick of play. It's just like that horrid Maisie."
"She isn't a bit more horrid than you and Tootsie!" suddenly remarked Ermengarde, finding her voice, and speaking with what seemed to the two children slow and biting emphasis. "You're all horrid together; I never met such horrid people. You are none of you ladies and gentlemen. I wouldn't play with you for the world! Good-by; I'm going home."
Ermengarde turned her back, and began to walk rapidly away from the picnic party. Whether she would have succeeded in finding her way back to Glendower remains a mystery, for she had not gone a dozen yards before she encountered a stout old lady, who spread out her arms as she approached, and made herself look like a great fan.
"Whither away, now, little maid of the woods?" she said. "Oh, I suppose you are the little girl called Wilton, whom Florrie brought over from Glendower with her. Maisie told me of you."
"I'm going home; please let me pass," said Ermengarde.
"Oh, highty-tighty! not a bit of you, dearie. You'll stay here till Florrie wants to go back. You'd get her into no end of a scrape if you were to leave her now. You must stick to her, my love. It would be unkind to desert poor Florrie in that fashion. I thought Maisie had left you with Fanny and Tootsie."