“I don’t need to go, as I’m not out,” said Stasy. “Besides, one of us would be enough in any case. I would have liked to see Alderwood, though, but I won’t go the way those Blissmore girls go, on a ‘show’ day—‘open to the public’—faugh!” with great disgust.
Blanche could not help laughing.
“How consistent you are,” she said.—“Well, Herty,” as at that moment her little brother came flying out of their own gate to meet them, “why didn’t you come with us to the woods to gather leaves and hunt for violets?”
“I meant to come,” said Herty regretfully, “but when I’d finished my lessons for Monday, you were gone, and I couldn’t see you, though I ran as far down the road as I could. Oh, Blanchie,” he went on, “I met such a nice lady riding. She saw I was looking up and down, and she stopped her horse and spoke to me. I asked her if she’d seen two girls like you and Stasy, and she said no, but if she did, she’d tell you I was looking for you. She said she knew you by sight, and she hoped we liked living at Pinnerton.”
“Was it a young lady?” asked Blanche.
“Yes,” said the boy, “and she came out of those big gates, nearly opposite the lane, you know. She had a nice face, not as pretty as yours, Blanchie, but about as pretty as—” And he glanced at his younger sister dubiously. “No, she wasn’t like Stasy. She had a more shiny face.”
“Thank you,” said Stasy. “Perhaps she uses Pears’s soap, which I don’t.”
Herty looked puzzled.
“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “It was a pretty, shiny way—out of her eyes, too. Not soapy. You are silly, Stasy.”
“I know,” said Blanche with interest, and not sorry to divert the quarrel, which she saw impending between the two—“I know who it was. It must have been the girl with the happy face—Lady Hebe. That was what Herty was trying to describe. You might say ‘sunshiny,’ instead of ‘shiny,’ Herty.”