“Your help when the time comes.”
“Oh, dear!” said Jane. “That means something wicked!”
“You have a nice opinion of me, Jane.”
“But it does, doesn’t it?” said Jane. “I cannot tell you how mean I felt when I had to praise you all day long that day when I was Ralph’s school-mother. I got positively sick of the feeling: I don’t want to have to do that again.”
“You won’t,” said Harriet. “It will be something quite different now. But there’s the tea-bell, and I am hungry. I am so thankful that we need not stand any longer in that yard looking at those hideous donkeys. Let us run to the house; let’s see who’ll be there first!”
The tea was quite as delightful as healthy appetites and cheerful faces round the board, and merry laughter and gay young voices could make it. Mr Durrant himself was present at the tea-table, but he did not preside. It was Robina who on this occasion was given the position of tea-maker.
“I am going to be fed and petted and fussed over,” said Mr Durrant. “I say, you eight little mothers, you have got to mother me a bit; you have got to keep my plate well supplied. I have a ravening wolf inside me, and he must be well fed. I am good for any amount of cakes, and jam, and bread and butter; so see you feed me. Don’t keep me waiting an instant when my plate gets empty; and I am a whale on tea, I can tell you; cup after cup I shall want. The little mothers must keep me going with fresh cups of tea. Yes, Robina shall preside to-day—she is the good school-mother—and Harriet to-morrow, and so on, and so on. Now then, let us fall into place. Ralph, my son, take the lead; you are the gentleman of the house on this occasion.”