'Yes, dear mamma,' I answered cheerfully, and with all the delightful exciting ideas in my head, it was quite easy to be bright, as you can understand, 'yes, we are going to have a nice day. Geordie and I'—I glanced at him; he had not exactly said so, but I knew he would not mind,—'Geordie and I want to go down to the hut very soon after luncheon, if you say we may, to get it all ready for you and papa and the little ones, to come to tea.'
'All right,' said mamma, though I saw a tiny shadow cross her face as I spoke, and I knew she was thinking to herself that very likely it would be our last Sunday afternoon tea-party for a very long time, perhaps for ever, as far as the hut was concerned! But these solemn kinds of 'perhapses' are always in our lives, and if we were always thinking of them, it would be more than our minds and hearts could bear. We should not forget them, but I am sure we are not meant to be gloomy about them. Still, at the best, even if my grand plan was carried out, there was plenty to be sad about, I knew. Poor papa's going so far away, first and worst of all, and worst of course for mamma, for though we loved him dearly, she must love him, I suppose, still more.
He came into the room just as these thoughts were flying about my brain. I thought he looked more tired and troubled than mamma—men are not so patient and not always so good at hiding their feelings as some women. At least I think so!
We two, however, were really feeling cheerful, and I think our brightness made it easier for mamma to be, at least, less sad than she would otherwise have been. And I said to myself—
'Papa will cheer up too if he likes our idea, and I really can't see why he should not like it.'
So breakfast got on pretty well on the whole, and as soon as it was over, Dods and I went off for a talk. How we did talk! But first of all—that was so like Dods—he pulled out his watch and looked what o'clock it was.
'It's just half-past nine, Ida,' he said, 'and we must be quite ready by half-past ten. So let's talk till ten, no longer; it always takes you twenty minutes or half an hour to get dressed for church, and you know it vexes papa to be kept waiting. And to-day it's really very important not to vex him at all, if anything is to come of our plan.'
'Very well,' I said; 'I promise to go in at ten.'
Then we went to one of our favourite garden seats and set to work at our idea. It grew and grew; we kept thinking of new bits to it, each saying something which made the other think of something else, till by ten o'clock we began to feel as if it were all quite settled—'cut and dry.'