He looked pleadingly and sorrowfully at Pattie, as much as to say: “Please, please, don’t trouble.”
Poor Pattie, whose face was scarlet with mortification, insisted on providing a meal.
“You can’t come into the school-room,” she said a little crossly. “The boys do leave it in such a mess. There is the rabbit-hutch in one corner, and I know Jim and Davie were washing Smut there this afternoon. You must come into the drawing-room. I will manage to get you some tea. Don’t stare, Anastasia. Go at once, and see that the kettle is boiling.”
Pattie conducted her guests into a small, very hot drawing-room. She then left them, and, after about a quarter of an hour, reappeared with a tray containing very poor tea and some stale cake. Oh, how hot was that little room! It faced due south, and scarcely a breath of air came through the open bay window. Ralph felt very tired; he did not know why. He had had a trying morning. Those sums had worried him, and Harriet’s conduct had also worried him, although he was not aware of that fact at present.
When the tea had come to an end Harriet said quickly:
“Now, the fun is really going to begin; you and I will hurry off to the fair, Pattie. I can’t stay late, as your know, for I must smuggle Ralph back before Miss Ford misses him. You will stay quietly here, Ralph. You will be a good boy? I couldn’t take you to the fair, even if I wished it; for, in the first place, I haven’t any money.”
“But I have a shilling—a whole shilling,” said Pattie, feeling all of a sudden quite grand and important.
“I am very sorry,” continued Harriet, speaking in a firm voice; “but I shall be obliged to borrow my entrance money from you, Pattie. I will pay you next week, when my pocket-money comes in. There will be enough for us both to go in and also to have a turn on the merry-go-round—”
“And we must see the fat lady and the man with two heads,” said Pattie.
“But why mustn’t I see them, too?” asked Ralph, whose little face was scarlet now, and his voice quite choky with anger and disappointment.