The others looked at each other, and then Mollie began to laugh, and went on laughing till Prue and Grizzel laughed at her laughing. "Well, I must say!" she exclaimed at last, "I am a Sherlock Holmes and no mistake! I was so busy being clever that I never even thought of a milkman, which would have been Baden-Powell's first idea. Of all the silly things! Why on earth didn't we think of it, Prue?"
Hugh, most reluctantly, went to school next morning, and Mamma kept the girls busy with Italian, music, and needlework till lunch-time. After that Grizzel departed with her paint-box, Bridget took Baby for a walk, and Mollie and Prue settled themselves in the little house, with a cushion apiece at their backs, a basket of freshly pulled oranges between them, and a couple of books in case conversation should flag.
"Now, Prudence, tell me more about Time-travellers," Mollie said; "somehow I can't seem to remember that I am one; in fact—" she paused.
"You can't believe it," Prudence finished for her. "I know. But it's meant to be like that. If you didn't forget you would remember too much, and then you would stop being a Time-traveller, because your mind can't be in two places at once. So it is better not to talk; or you may have to go."
"I won't again, but just tell me two things. Can we travel forwards as well as backwards?"
"A few people can, not everyone; but it is better not, Mollie. It is far better not."
"But you came into my Time to fetch me."
"I didn't exactly come, you brought me; and I can only stay a moment."
"Well," Mollie said, after a short silence, "the other thing is: Can I bring Dick? He would love this place and this Time—somehow you seem to have more room than we have, and you are not so frightfully busy. We never have enough time; I think your hours must be longer than ours," she went on, with a sigh. "I simply cannot get all the things squeezed in that I want to do. I often wish the days were thirty hours long."
"You weren't wishing that when I came," Prudence said, with a little laugh. "I don't know about Dick; you can't bring him unless he wants to come—of his own accord, I mean."