"Where are those parcels?" she asked.
"The parcels! Goodness me, I forgot them! How could I do such a thing!" Prudence exclaimed, jumping up from the green chair and rushing into the hall, followed by Mollie; Grizzel sat on in sulky dignity, trying to look uninterested.
"Suppose Papa had come home and found we had not opened them, his feelings would have been dreadfully hurt," Prudence said with compunction. "It would have been murder outing. He always says murder will out." Grizzel's dignity could not survive the sight of the brown-paper packages, and the parcels were quickly undone and the wrappings and string tidied away—"the evidences of our folly", Prue said, as she bundled them out of sight. The contents were so charming that everybody forgot their little difference of opinion. There was a fine large kaleidoscope, the first she had ever seen, for Mollie; a charming musical box, with a long list of tunes printed inside the lid and a little gilt key to wind it up with, for Prudence; a Winsor and Newton paint-box for Grizzel; Five Weeks in a Balloon, by Jules Verne, for Hugh; and a Punchinello doll on a stick for Baby.
"I must say," Mollie remarked appreciatively, "your father is a peach. I have often wanted to see a proper kaleidoscope, but they seem to have gone out of fashion."
The others were too busy admiring their own things to observe Mollie's remarks. Grizzel was speechless with joy as she found all the paints she had been longing for—the crimson lake, Prussian blue, Vandyke brown, and the rest; Prue had wound up her box, and as Mollie turned her kaleidoscope towards the light, and delighted herself with the wonderful colours and designs it produced, she heard the delicate, sweet tinkle of a faintly familiar tune—an old-fashioned sort of tune….
While they were thus pleasantly occupied Professor and Mrs. Campbell and Hugh returned, and Mollie was introduced to "Mamma" who after all did not look in the least alarming. She was a fair, pretty woman, with large clear eyes like Hugh's and a beautifully modulated voice. She kissed Mollie and looked at her with rather a sad expression in her eyes:
"You must tell me all about home this evening," she said in her musical voice. "How nicely your hair is cut; I wonder if Prue's would look nice like that."
"No, no," said Papa, laying his hand on Prue's curls, "I can't spare one hair off my Prue's head. I must have my brown ringlets to play with sometimes."
Hugh could talk of nothing but the wonderful telephone. "I believe I could make one," he said later on. "I understood a good deal of what the man said. I shall require a new magnet and some other things. I'll begin tomorrow." He had forgotten all about such trifles as hidden ladders and treed sisters, and the girls did not remind him.
But when Mollie found herself alone with Grizzel she began to talk about the little house and described a beautiful plan she had concocted for a house-warming, finishing up with the remark that it was a pity that Grizzel could not come.