It was now nearly eleven o’clock, and a perfect summer night. The boys, Jack and Andrew, had gone to bed, but a few lights were twinkling here and there in the dear old rectory.
“Oh, I am not a scrap sleepy”, said Maggie. “This air stimulates one; it is splendid. By the way, girls,” she added, suddenly turning and facing her companions, “would you like your bracelets to have rubies in them or sapphires?”
“Nonsense!” said Molly, turning crimson.
Belle laughed. “You don’t suppose you are accomplishing that?” she said.
Maggie spoke rather slowly. “Mother has one dozen bracelets in her jewelry-case. Father brought them to her in the course of his travels. Some he got in India and some in Africa. They are very valuable and exceedingly quaint, and I recall now to my memory, and can-see clearly in my mind’s eye one lovely gold bracelet fashioned like a snake and with eyes of ruby, and another (which I think he must have got at Colombo) that consists of a broad gold band studded here and there with sapphires. How pretty those bracelets would look on your dear little arms, Molly and Isabel; and how glad—how very, very glad—your Maggie will be to give them to you!”
“And, of course, when you do give them to us we’ll be delighted to have them,” said Molly and Isabel.
Then Isabel laughed and said, “But what is the good of counting your chickens before they’re hatched?”
“I consider my chickens hatched,” was Maggie’s remark, “What fun we shall all have together next winter! Aneta won’t have much chance against us. Yes, girls, of course 25 I like your friends Cicely and Merry; but they’ll be twice three times—the girls they are when they have been for a short time at Mrs. Ward’s school.”
“Aren’t you tired, Maggie?” was Molly’s remark. “Wouldn’t you like to go to bed?”
“I am not a scrap tired, and I don’t want to go to bed at all; but I suppose that means that you would?”