“Oh yes, yes!” cried Milly, shutting up her copybook in a great hurry. “They’ll be so much astonished, mother, for we didn’t promise to write to them. I don’t believe they ever get any letters.”
The children had a great deal of affection and some secret pity for these playfellows of theirs, who had a sick mother, and who did not get half the pleasures and amusements that they did. And, as I have already told you, they could not bear Miss Chesterton, the little boys’ aunt, who lived with them. They felt sure that Jacky and Francis must be unhappy, only because they had to live with Miss Chesterton.
This was Milly’s letter when it was done. Milly could only write very slowly, in rather big hand, so that her letters were never very long:
My Dear Jacky—Don’t you think it very odd getting a letter from me? It is nearly a fortnight since we came here. At first it was very nice. We went up the mountains, and Aunt Emma took us in a boat on the lake. And we gathered some wild strawberries, only some of them were quite white—not red a bit. But now it has begun to rain, and we don’t like it at all. Perhaps we sha’n’t be able to get home because the rain will cover up the roads. It is very dull staying in, only mother makes us such nice plays. Good-bye, Jacky. I send my love to Francis. Mind you don’t forget us.
Your loving little friend,
MILLY.
Olly wrote a much longer letter, that is to say, mother wrote for him, and he told her what to say, and as this was a much easier way of writing than Milly’s way, he got on very fast, and Mrs. Norton had to write as quickly as she could, to keep up with him. And this was what Olly had to say:
My Dear Francis—I wonder what you’ll say to-morrow morning when the postman brings you this letter. I hope you’ll write back, because it won’t be fair if you don’t. It isn’t such fun here now because it does rain so. Milly and I are always telling the rain to go away, but it won’t—though it did at home. Last week we went out in a boat, and I rowed. I rowed a great way, much farther than Milly. We went very slow when Milly rowed. It was very jolly at the picnic. Aunt Emma gave me some cake, and mother gave me some bread and jam. Nana won’t let us have cake and jam both, when we have tea at home. Aunt Emma told us a story about King Arthur. I don’t believe you ever heard it. The water-fairies took him away, and his friend wanted to go too, but the king said ‘No! you must stop behind.’ Milly cried because she felt sad about the king. I didn’t cry, because I’m a little boy. Mother says you won’t understand about the story, and she says we must tell it you when we get home. So we will, only perhaps we sha’n’t remember. Do you do lessons now? We don’t do any—only when it rains. Milly’s writing a letter to Jacky—mine’s much longer than hers.
Your little friend,
OLLY.
Then came the putting up the letters, addressing them, and stamping them, all of which the children enjoyed very much, and by the time they were laid on the hall table ready to go to the post it was nearly dinner-time.
How the beck did roar that afternoon. And when the children looked out from the drawing-room window they could see a little flood on the lawn, where the water had come over the side of the stream. While they were having their tea, with mother sitting by, working and chattering to them, they heard a knock at the door, and when they opened it there was father standing in the unused kitchen, with the water running off his waterproof coat, making little streams all over the stone floor.
“I have been down to look at the river,” he said to Mrs. Norton. “Keep off, children! I’m much too wet to touch. Such rain! It does know how to come down here! The water’s over the road just by the stepping-stones. John Backhouse says if it goes on another twenty-four hours like this, there’ll be no getting to Wanwick by the road, on foot.”
“Father,” said Milly, looking at him with a very solemn face, “wouldn’t it be dreadful if it went on raining and raining, and if the river came up and up, right up to the drive and into the hall, and we all had to sit upstairs, and the butcher couldn’t bring us any meat, and John Backhouse couldn’t bring us any milk, and we all died of hunger.”