Kitty herself was always the pink of neatness. Hester was evidently the troublesome one of the family.
Leslie went on packing her basket. She wedged in the hard-boiled eggs, raised pies, roast chickens, sandwiches, and the sweets. At last the big basket was quite full.
“Doesn’t it look tempting?” said Mabel, smacking her lips. “How frightfully hungry I’ll be. Oh, don’t forget, whatever happens, the other basket with the ginger beer and lemonade. I only trust we have got enough.”
“And the cold tea for mother,” said Llewellyn; “be sure you put that in.”
The boys and girls chatted eagerly one to the other.
“I say,” cried Kitty, “isn’t it nice to have old Leslie back again? We’ll hate it when you have to return to your grand college in the autumn, Leslie; but I wish,” she added, “you would talk more about it. I thought you’d have no end of rattling good stories to tell us; but you are as mum and quiet as if you had not had a good time at all, whereas, of course, you have had the very best time a girl could have. I suppose it is the weight of all the learning that bothers you. And what about those Chetwynds? You wrote to mother about them,
and about that extraordinary girl, Belle Acheson; but since you have come back, you have hardly said a word about any of your fellow-students.”
“I am sorry,” said Leslie. “I will try to tell you something amusing to-day, Kitty. I don’t want to make myself mum and disagreeable.”
“Oh, you are never that, you dear old darling; only, we were hoping for so much—weren’t we, Hetty?”
“Yes,” said Hester, who was still darning the rent in her dress. “I do wish this cotton wouldn’t break so.”