“This case has already painted her uncle’s pants, and she’ll paint the house red if she doesn’t soon get dinner!” laughed Robin. “Come home—it’s horrid of you to jeer at my artistic instincts, just as they’re developing!”
“It was indeed, and I think the fence is beautiful,” said her mother. “And yes, I do believe it would look better if it were done all round. Robin, our little home is beginning to do us credit!”
“Isn’t it?” agreed Robin, looking affectionately at the white cottage nestling in its girdle of blossoming garden. “What a pity it is we can’t fill it up with poor youngsters who never see anything but streets. How I do hate streets! Tell you what, Mummie, when I find a gold-mine in the hills——”
“When you do!”
“Why, of course I’m going to—the kind all stiff with nuggets, like plums in a pudding! Then we’ll get little convalescents from the Children’s Hospital and put them in all the empty rooms. Plenty of blankets, aren’t there?”
“Plenty—not that that need trouble you when you have the plum-pudding gold-mine!” said her mother laughing.
“No, of course—I forgot that. Well, I’ll buy eiderdown quilts. And we’ll give them all a glorious time. Isn’t it a jolly idea, Mummie! I have heaps of ideas like that while I’m working, and even if they never come to pass I’ll have had all the fun of planning them. They taught me at school that ‘to travel hopefully was a better thing than to arrive,’ or something like that. Well, I haven’t done much arriving yet, but there’s a lot of fun in travelling hopefully!”
Mrs. Hurst looked at the eager, merry face.
“You are certainly a hopeful traveller for one’s journey-mate,” she said. “And now, I am going to give orders, for once. I have sat still almost all the morning, and need exercise, whereas you have worked since sunrise without a break—and that is not good for young muscles. You will therefore take a book out to your bed on the veranda and lie down for at least two hours——”
“And leave you to wash up! Not if I know it!”