“The captain thought it best for her to stay at home, and she preferred to do so, since Gracie is so unwell as to need her nursing.”
“How nice and good of her!” cried Sydney; “but I’m ever so sorry not to have her with us, for I like her very much indeed.”
“I love her dearly,” said Evelyn. “I never saw a more warm-hearted, generous girl, and it’s just beautiful to see how she and Gracie love one another; their father and brother, too.”
“I really think the captain might have let Lu come, and I am very sorry for her disappointment,” said Rosie.
“She was disappointed at first,” said Evelyn, “but after Gracie took sick she wouldn’t have come if her father had given permission; she told me so, saying that she couldn’t enjoy herself at all, knowing her darling little sister was suffering without her there to comfort and amuse her.”
“Vi would have done that quite as well, I am sure,” remarked Rosie.
“And so we’re only five instead of six,” said Maud. “Well, we’ll each one of us just have to try to be all the more entertaining to the rest. Your dress and hair are all right, Eva, and let us hurry out to the parlor, where the others are: for they’ll be wanting us to take part in the games.”
The door opened as she spoke, and an attractive-looking little girl, about Evelyn’s age, looked in. It was Lora Howard, the youngest of the Pine Grove family.
“Come, girls,” she said, “we’re waiting for you. O Eva, how do you do?”
“What’s the game to be?” asked Rosie; “some sort of a romping one to please the little ones, I suppose.”