“Oh, beg pardon!” ejaculated Joel, backing off, “I was thinking it was Phronsie.” Then in hurried Robert Bingley.
“Miss Loughead, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. May I have the pleasure of driving you to Hingham this morning?”
“I am going with Mr. Joel Pepper,” said Amy. And Joel heard his friend Bingley say, “Whew!” and he meant to have it out with him some time for that.
At last they were off,—Mrs. Higby, shading her eyes with her hand, watched them from the upper door,—all but Jasper, who went as usual with the “little publishing bag” to town in the early train. The children were distributed evenly throughout the party on the drag; Polly and Grace Tupper, Ben and David were on horseback; and Grandpapa and Phronsie led off in the dog-cart merrily; while Joel and Amy Loughead brought up the rear, the interval being filled by a big beach-wagon. When Robert Bingley found how it was, he clambered into this last, without a sign on his face that he didn’t choose that place to begin with.
“Well, really,” observed Percy, adjusting his monocle with importance, “this road looks exactly like all country roads—don’t you know.”
Van, on the back seat with Gladys Ray, grinned. “Astonishing fact,” he whispered to her. “It’s his monocle that does that.”
“Polly wouldn’t like it to have you make fun of your brother,” she said.
Van colored up to the roots of his light hair. “I’m glad you’re going to be like Polly, Gladys,” he said, “and keep me straight.”
“Indeed, I’m not going to keep you straight,” she cried with spirit; “you’ve got to keep yourself straight. But I shall say things that I’ve heard the Peppers say, for it’s good for you to hear them.”
“Isn’t this fine,” cried David, riding up to the side of the trap—“eh, Joe? Doesn’t it take you back to the days when we used to race barefoot along this Hingham road?”