“Oh, you old goose!” said Maggie, kissing her. “How could they be a bribe when I don’t ask you to do anything at all? But now, listen. We were tired when we got to 33 the gallery; therefore that sweet little Merry of yours ordered fruit and milk and cake, and we ate and talked.”
“What did you talk about?”
“School, dear.”
“What was the good of your talking about school to Merry when she can’t go?”
“Can’t go?” said Maggie. “Why, she is going; only, it was my bounden duty to make her want to go. Well, I succeeded in doing that this morning. There’s the gong, and, notwithstanding my lunch, I am quite hungry.”
“Well, Andrew and Jack are perfectly mad to see you; you’ll have to devote a bit of your time to them. Dear me, Mags!” said Molly, “it must be tiresome to be a sort of universal favorite, as you are.”
“Tiresome!” said Maggie, glancing round with her queer, expressive eyes, “when I love it like anything? Let’s get up a sort of play between ourselves this afternoon, and let the boys join in; and, oh! couldn’t we—don’t you think we might—get your two friends Cicely and Merry to join us, just for an impromptu thing that we could act beautifully in the hay-field? Wouldn’t their father consent?”
“Why, of course he would. I’ll run round the minute lunch is over and get them,” said Isabel. “You are a girl for planning things, Mags! It’ll be quite glorious.”
“We might have tea in the hay-field too,” continued Maggie. “I am sure Peterkins and Jackdaw will help us.”
“Capital! capital! and we’ll get David”—David was the gardener’s boy—“to pick lots of fruit for the occasion.”