"Oh, I don't want any holiday, Miss Audrey." Mary's voice was quite decisive. "I mean, I don't want to go away. I haven't got any money to waste, and holidays do cost more'n they are worth. Leastways, mine do, for I'm so home-sick all the time, I'm only longing for them to be over. It seems waste, doesn't it, miss?"
"It does," agreed Audrey gravely, "but I suppose you have the joy of coming back, and you appreciate home all the more for having been away."
"Well, miss, it seems rather a lot to pay, for only just that. And a lot to bear too, when you are 'appy enough already. What I do want to go to is our own treat, when it comes, and I'd like to go to the sea for a day."
"Well, I am sure you can, Mary. I will speak to mother and father about it."
Audrey was busily collecting the things for her mother's lunch-tray. She had to make her an omelette, and she felt nervous about it, for hitherto Irene had helped her, and Mary was not capable of doing so.
As soon as it was ready she hurried upstairs with the tray. She had not seen her mother yet since they had all departed, and she had suddenly begun to wonder how she was bearing it.
"Of course I ought to have run in at once to see her," she thought remorsefully, "but I did feel miserable."
Mrs. Carlyle was lying propped up on her cushions with Debby's kittens beside her. "Well, darling," she said, looking up with a glad smile of welcome, "how did they all go off, I am longing to know. I have been picturing their enjoyment of everything they see and do on the journey, and their joy when they first catch sight of the sea."
"Oh dear," sighed Audrey, "everyone is thinking of their happiness. I can only think how miserable it is without them; and I should have thought you would have felt it even more than I do, mother."
"Perhaps it is that I have had more experience, dear, I seem to live again my own first visit to the sea; and time does not seem so long to one when one is older either, and it passes only too soon. I feel too full of gratitude to feel miserable, I had been thinking for such a long time about a change of air for them, and worrying myself because it seemed absolutely out of the question. Then quite suddenly the way was opened and all was made possible without my help or interference. One could sing thanksgiving all day long one has so many blessings to be thankful for."