"And I would, too," declared Grace. "Good thing you scared them off with your flare-up, Madaline. Will you ever forget that movie scene, with all the lights!"
"But, girls," insisted Mary, serious again, "you know I do not feel I should stay here, as I am staying, any longer than I actually have to. I know you are all perfectly lovely, and Mrs. Dunbar is like a—young woman who lives in a shoe, with so many children and so forth, but I also know something about propriety, and it seems an imposition for me to bother you so much."
"There, now," wailed Cleo, "just when everything is being so beautifully fixed. Mary-love, I have a real scheme, but it's a secret. Can't I have a secret same as you?" Cleo twisted her head characteristically. "At any rate," she continued, "we haven't any idea of letting out Peterina Panna (that's my feminine for Peter Pan); we haven't any idea of letting her escape. She must stay right here until all this delicious mystery is cleared up. You see, Peterina Panna, we are only beginning to know your fairyland story, and now I for one am determined to put all the pieces together and make a beautiful real dream out of it, only, of course, the dream must be true."
"Yes, and I just wrote home begging an extension of time, so I could be in the fairy play at the end," declared Madaline, "for I am going to have you worked into a princess or something beautiful like that," decided romantic little Madaline.
"I know you are all sincere," Mary said gently, "and of course it would be difficult to arrange about going away just now, with Grandie not strong. But he suggested that I ask Mrs. Dunbar's advice on a boarding school."
"Don't you dare!" cried Cleo. "She might just pack us all off, and of course we couldn't blame her, for we have turned Cragsnook into a regular institution for noisy girls. But, hark ye! Aunt Audrey loves it that way, and she is planning more noise for Uncle Guy's return. And wait until you see him! You will love him. But please to remember he is especially my uncle. And now, scouts, I am going to call this meeting adjourned. I can smell harvest apples all the way up here. Is there anything better than those juicy early apples!"
The girls made that opinion unanimous, and what was left of Michael's apples fifteen minutes later would not even make pickings for Jennie's pet gray hen.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE SHADOWS
"Cleo, come here," Grace beckoned her chum, as Mary and Madaline started for a fishing trip to the little brook that capered through the Cragsnook lands, at the foot of an ambitious group of hills. "I am just so anxious to talk to you," Grace almost implored.