“It sounds uncomfortable,” smiled Mrs. Hurst. “Still—”
“Oh, you know what I mean. We can fix her up in a jolly corner with a couch and a little table, and she really won’t be much bother! I suppose Dr. Lane and Barry will be out all day—that means cutting lunches: I can do that all right. Mother, hadn’t I better go down to Merri Creek this afternoon and telephone to the store in Baroin for things? We haven’t nearly enough groceries.”
“Yes—and you must tell Mrs. Hawkes I shall not be able to send her any butter for awhile. We shall have to plan things, Robin; it won’t do to be caught without food, if fish and rabbits fail.”
“Lucky I was commissariat department at school,” said Robin, with an impish grin. “There are four or five fowls that can be killed.” Suddenly her face clouded. “Mother, I could get Danny to do the killing, couldn’t I?”
“Yes, indeed,” said her mother, hastily. “You didn’t think I would let you do it?”
“I ought to want to do it, and save money,” said Robin, still looking distressed. “But I couldn’t kill my chooks, unless I really had to. Rabbits are different, though I don’t enjoy dealing with them, either. Still, they’re strangers to me, and the chooks are intimate friends. I should feel like the lady who suggested cutting her baby in half for King Solomon!”
The arrangement, begun with many misgivings on the part of Mrs. Hurst, worked with remarkable smoothness. Never, she declared, were paying guests less trouble than hers: they appeared to enjoy everything, never grumbled, and gave as little trouble as was possible. On the other hand, the Lanes rejoiced in the peace and freedom of Hill Farm. The food was simple, but it was well cooked and daintily served: succulent grills and savoury roasts were not, indeed, to be procured, but Mrs. Hurst had the skill of a magician in making the indifferent meat of the travelling cart assume appetizing forms, and Dr. Lane was frankly bewildered by the variations in their meals, and assured his hostess that she was a perpetual surprise. The freshest of vegetables, the yellowest of butter, the thickest of cream—all were delightful to people accustomed to eating food long past its first freshness. “If I have eggs for breakfast here,” said the doctor, “I am morally certain that the hens have scarcely finished cackling over them before I have eaten them! I am growing disgracefully fat!”
Barry and his father fished and shot early and late, comfortably certain that no one minded erratic hours for breakfast and tea. Dr. Lane had at first made a heroic effort to be punctual, and had protested when Mrs. Hurst assured him cheerfully that it was not necessary.
“But what does it matter?” she had asked. “Robin and I have no servants to hamper us: it does not trouble us at all if you do come in late. And we know what it means for you to have the morning and evening rise for fishing; how stupid it would be for you to miss them on account of mere meals! As for the rabbits—if you want them, you simply must be out in the evening. I can’t give you dinner at night, but you can have a meal whenever you choose to come in.”
“But the trouble to you—”