“Oh, Polly, can we really run?” cried Davie in great excitement.
“Yes, indeed,” cried Polly, finding her courage in David’s happiness. “Come on, I’ll race you to that big pine-tree.”
“Now what does Miss Parrott want with the likes of them poor children,” exclaimed a scornful housemaid, peering out of the green lattice door.
“Hevin knows!” cried the butler, raising both hands, “and they are actually to stay to luncheon.”
“Oh—oh!” ejaculated the housemaid with a sniff.
Up-stairs under the gambrel roof overrun with sweet-brier, Miss Parrott was sitting by her window, listening to the childish peals of laughter, as Polly and David played hide-and-seek between the ancestral trees.
“I haven’t felt so happy here,” placing her hand on her heart, “since Sister and I played there. Strange that I dreaded asking children here.”
The butler flung open the green lattice door, and said harshly, “Come in to luncheon,” and started to find Miss Parrott just behind him.
“That is scarcely the way to summon my guests,” she said.
“Beg pardon, Ma’am,” said the butler obsequiously.