Celia shook her head.
Jack surveyed the piles of fruit. "Jiminy! have you all this to do?"
"Yes; Aunt Sally is sick this morning, and it can't wait."
Jack disappeared, leaving Celia to her gloomy thoughts, but ten minutes had not passed before he was back again, accompanied by the other Arden Foresters.
"We have come to help," they announced.
For a moment Celia was annoyed. She had made up her mind to be a martyr and did not care to be disturbed.
"Indeed, you can't," she said. "I am very much obliged, but you would stain yourselves, and—"
"Give us some aprons," interrupted Belle. "Mother lets us help her."
Maurice added, "It is reciprocity, Miss Celia."
Celia's ill temper wavered and went down before the row of bright faces. "Well, perhaps you may help if you really want to, but it is tiresome work."