"'The three men' were the three Rutherford lads—aren't they tall creatures?" laughed Mrs. Grey. "But they are only about six months older, each, than our girls. Such nice, kindly, well-bred lads they seem to be!"
"Where were you, Aunt Azraella? Why didn't you come in? We didn't see you," said Rob, with apparent innocence.
"I was at home, too busy to gad," said her aunt. "I got a few late currants, Mary, and I put them up—they made nine glasses of jelly. I was short this year. You did not see me, Roberta, because I was not in sight. I have no time to waste. But I saw you had a party, and I made out the tea on your lawn with my field-glasses."
Rob had known this quite well before she was told, but she dearly loved to extract the information for the benefit of the others each time that their aunt came to reproach them for misdeeds which she had discovered by a method of which she seemed never to be ashamed, but which filled the Grey girls with wrath or amusement, according to their mood at the moment.
Now Prue choked, and Oswyth's lips twitched, but Roberta looked Aunt Azraella straight in the eyes, her own brilliant dark ones blankly quiet.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, as if enlightened. "Jelly-glasses and field-glasses, currants with an a, and currents with an e—currant jelly and current news! Didn't we look pretty, aunt? We had out lots of the old china and pewter."
This was pure malice on Rob's part, for Mrs. Winslow coveted the Winslow heirlooms, to which as a childless widow, Winslow but by marriage, she had no claim.
Mrs. Grey glanced at her second daughter. "If some of us don't make ourselves presentable we shall be caught in our uniforms by someone whom we mind seeing more than we do aunty, children," she said. "Suppose we take turns in dressing, and Rob and Prue go first?"
Roberta arose. "Shall I wear my bridle, Mardy?" she inquired. "Not very hard to see through, the Lady Grey, is she?" she added to her younger sister when they were in the hall.
"I really don't see, Mary, I do not see, how, situated as you are, you can reconcile it with your conscience to give lawn-parties," said Aunt Azraella, severely. "These girls ought to understand that they cannot expect the sort of youth they would have if their father were other than he is. They ought to help you; not waste money in entertaining."