'I CAN'T VERY WELL GET OUT,' SHE SAID.
'I can't very well get out,' she said. 'I'm so packed in, and there are some breakable things. But I'll manage it in a minute. Yes, yes—it's I myself! I've come to stay with you, though I have not been invited. And—you'll understand directly, I've brought my house—or rather my room—with me like a snail, so auntie can't turn me away again.'
She was so excited and delighted with herself, and we were so excited and delighted too, that we could scarcely speak for laughing. We did not let her get out; she was so packed in, as she said, but we walked by the door, she talking as hard as she could, for her vehicle was lumbering along at a foot's pace.
'Yes,' she said, in answer to our eager questions; 'I've been travelling like this since ten o'clock. No, not quite like this—we did trot on the high road. The waggonette——'
'Waggonette,' interrupted George, 'I should call it a—waggon and a half!'
'Well, never mind about that. Call it an omnibus if you like. Anyway, it started yesterday, and spent the night at Wetherford. Granny wanted me to come all the way to Kirke by train and to write to tell you, which would have spoilt the fun. So I got her to let me '('to let you indeed, Miss Taisy,' thought I to myself, though I did not say so; 'I know better. You said sweetly, "Granny, dear, I just must;" and she said, "Well, well, my darling, if you must, you must, I suppose")—'to let me come to Wetherford this morning with her maid, and to meet old Dawson' (the driver) 'there, and come on as you see. I had hard work to find room for myself inside, and I did begin to think we should never get here! But the evenings are long now, and it's been a lovely day; everything's dry and ready—bedding and all. There'll be plenty of time to unpack, and Dawson is to stay the night at Kirke, and ride home on one horse, leading the other.'
'And leaving the waggon,' I said, rather stupidly I must own; I think I was really feeling rather bewildered with the excitement and laughing and Taisy's flow of explanation.
She burst out laughing again at this.
'Of course,' she said. 'If I didn't keep my house, I might as well go back again. But do let us hurry on to tell auntie all about it.'
I think in her heart of hearts poor Taisy was feeling a tiny atom anxious as to what mamma would think of it all. But she need not have done. Mamma understood her so well and trusted her good sense as well as her affection, in spite of dear Taisy's rather wild ways sometimes.