“Has Prissie got one?” she asked, quite undisturbed by her father’s remark.
“Yes—mine is blue,” cried Priscilla, dragging hers out of the basket too. “I like mine best for me, but I like the red best for you. Look, isn’t mine lovely!” and she put the cloak on over her little print frock.
Then came a long comparison and examination of both. “I think I like my buttons best,” said Loveday, at the end of the inspection, “but you have a clasp on yours. Never mind—perhaps I shall get a clasp too some day.”
Then followed the long story of Priscilla’s call on Lady Carey, and of Lady Carey’s sending for the parcel, and every detail of Priscilla’s visit, even to the chair and the bell-pull; and it took so long to tell that the servant came in and laid the cloth and placed the dinner on the table before it was all done.
Loveday was so delighted with her cloak she could not be persuaded to take it off even for dinner, so she wore it throughout the meal, and all the way to Bessie’s too, “because,” as she said, “it matched her bucket so beautifully, and would give Bessie such a surprise.”
And Bessie really was surprised to see her little lady come back enveloped in a long, warm red cloak, with the hood drawn snugly over her head, especially as that same little lady had in the morning protested that it was too hot to bear even a cotton coat over her cotton frock.
Then Priscilla having been welcomed and kissed and crooned over by Bessie, and the cloaks having been admired, and Aaron introduced and allowed to run away and hide, Priscilla and Loveday were sent out to amuse themselves on the beach, while Dr. Carlyon talked over all the dreadful doings of his younger daughter and Bessie’s son.
It was then that Priscilla breathed to Loveday her great plan of going up to call on Mr. Winter. At first she had not intended to let Loveday into the secret, but she soon saw how impossible it would be to get away from her, that there would be a hue and cry if she were missed, and that matters then would be worse than ever. So Loveday was told, and her help proved to be of the greatest use.
“Of course,” said Prissy, “if father is going up there this afternoon, I needn’t go.”
But they soon learnt, to their surprise, that Dr. Carlyon had no intention of going, for, after his talk with Bessie, he came out to them on the beach to say that Bessie had given him the addresses of some lodgings, and he was now going to see if either of them would suit.