“Thank you,” said Phyllis, with a toss of her head and a smile in her bright eyes. Then she paused and looked the boys all over. They were sturdy little chaps, and Ned in particular had the brightest brown eyes and the most honest face in the world.
“It is awfully dull, isn’t it?” said the Squire’s daughter. “I wonder how any one can live in a place like this. Are there more than two of you, and have you lived here always?”
“There are more than two of us,” answered Ned, lifting his cap in the most polite manner, “and we don’t find it dull. Here are my two sisters,” he added; “may we introduce ourselves to you?”
“Oh, what a funny speech, and how nice it sounds!” cried Phyllis. “Four of you, and all children! I haven’t spoken to anything approaching a child for a whole fortnight. If it wasn’t for Bob here,”—she laid her hand on her pony’s mane as she spoke—“I believe I should lose my senses.”
“Well, you are all right now,” said Ned, who certainly never lost his. “Here’s Susie, and she’s dying to know you; and here’s Rosie, and I do believe she’d let her hair be cut short just for the pleasure of looking at you. And here am I, at your service; and I think I can promise that Ralph will do everything for you that boy could.”
Phyllis’s little face turned quite a bright pink. She glanced eagerly at both the girls, then she looked at Ralph, and finally she laughed.
“Let’s be friends,” she said. “I don’t know who you are nor anything about you, but, oh, you are human beings, you are children! and I am so glad—I am so glad.”
As she said the last words she held out her hand to Ned. He clasped it, and then let it drop, while the colour filled his own brown face.
“This makes all the difference in the world,” said Phyllis. “What shall we do? How are we to spend the afternoon? You don’t suppose, you four, that I’m going to lose sight of you, for if you do you are greatly mistaken.”
“What shall we do? Where shall we go?” cried Susie.