No wonder the poor stay-at-homes looked glum after this; no wonder they sighed with envy as they thought of the thick bread-and-butter in store for themselves. The elder girls provided themselves with books, and sat in rows before the fire, while artistic spirits set themselves copies, and filled up page after page of their sketching-books. Flora stitched on a table-centre destined to be a birthday present for her mother, and the younger girls clustered round Pixie, and besought her to think of some new means of amusement.
“Think of something, Pixie-doo! It’s so dull, and we are sick of the stupid old games. What did you do at home when it rained and you couldn’t go out?”
“I’ve never seen it rain hard enough to keep me indoors if I wanted to be out,” returned Pixie, with a toss of the head; “but I’ve had fine fun indoors sometimes when I didn’t feel disposed for exertion. Ratting in the barn is good sport, or grooming the pony, or feeding the animals, and pretending it is the Zoo; but you can’t do those things here. It’s hard to think of anything amusing when you are shut up in one room.”
“We can go out on the landing, if we like; I vote we do, and be by ourselves. The fifth forms are sure to tell us not to, the moment we have thought of something nice. Come along now, before they notice us!”
No sooner said than done. The little band of conspirators slipped from the room, and stood without on the square landing, five short-frocked girls all gazing eagerly, confidently, into the face of their leader.
“Pixie, what shall we do?”
Pixie racked her brains in despair, for not a single idea would come to her aid, and yet to acknowledge such a want of invention would have been to forfeit her position, and therefore not to be thought of for a second. Her eyes roamed from side to side, and lit upon a table on which some working materials happened to be lying. A basket, a folded length of cloth, and a roll of wide green binding such as was used to edge old-fashioned window-curtains. Pixie looked at it thoughtfully, fingered it to ascertain its weight, shook it out to discover its length, and cried eagerly—
“Just the thing! Might have been made for it. Would you like to see me lasso the next person who comes upstairs?”
“Lasso!” The girls were not quite sure of the meaning of the word, but Pixie explained it, suiting the action to the word.
A lasso was a rope with a noose at one end—so! and it was used to catch wild horses, or anything else you happened to chase. You stood with the rope gathered up in your hand—so! and then took aim and sent it flying out suddenly—so! Pat could do it beautifully, and he had taught her too, but she could not always manage very well. If you caught a girl from above, she would be startled out of her wits, and squeal like anything. It would be splendid fun. The next one, then, who came upstairs!