Priscilla was so delighted and surprised when she saw it, and heard that it was for her, that she could hardly speak.
“Now try it on,” said Lady Carey; and Priscilla was soon enveloped in the cloak, with the hood drawn over her curls, and her grey eyes and pretty pale face looked up at her kind friend so gratefully that Lady Carey drew her to her, and held her very close as she kissed her affectionately.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” cried Priscilla, finding her voice at last. “I love my cloak; I think it is perfectly beautiful!”
Then Lady Carey undid the other parcel, and took out a red one made in the same way.
“This is for Loveday. Do you think she will like it?”
Priscilla was again almost speechless with delight.
“She will love hers too,” she cried at last rapturously. “And she looks so pretty in red. Thank you, Lady Carey, very much indeed. Oh, I want Loveday to see them both, now, at once, and I want mother to see, and father. O father,” she cried, running to him as he came into the room again, “do look at what Lady Carey has made for Loveday and me!”
Of how she got out of the house, of her good-byes, and her drive home Priscilla remembered nothing. Of course, she wore her blue cloak—it would have been too much to expect her not to—and when she got home she flew into the house to tell her mother her news. But the next thing that clearly stood out in Priscilla’s mind when she thought it all over afterwards was her father’s coming into the room with a letter in his hand. Mrs. Carlyon was sitting with Loveday’s red cloak in her hands (Priscilla always remembered that); her own she was still wearing, and was feeling it rather warm, when her father drove all other thoughts out of her head by saying: “Just listen, dear, to this extraordinary letter that I have had from Loveday,” and he read it aloud.
“My dear Daddy,—Plese will you come at once, I am in great truble I wassent nawty reely but mr. winter sais we are and he was going to get a polisman, but he diden, he let us go home whil he thot what he shud do to punnish us I hop he won’t send us to prissen, Bessie lost us and cride and took us home. Do come quik, I am very sory, we were piskies. How is prissy.—Your loving
“Loveday. Do come quik.”