You can fancy how we looked forward to the next afternoon, and how we hoped our pretty lady would be there.
It all went right for once. Nurse was more busy than usual about all the things she had bought for us at Welford, and very glad to get rid of us as soon as we had had our dinner. For, happily, she had no trying-on to do to-day.
"You may have a good long afternoon in the garden," she said. "I must say you're wonderful good children for amusing yourselves. There's never any tease-teasing, like with some I've known—'What shall we do, nurse?' or, 'We've nothing to play at.' And you're getting very good, too, about never getting into mischief. You're much better, Miss Gussie, than you were last year at Ansdell: for it was you as was the ringleader."
"Yes," said I, not very much ashamed of the distinction. "Do you remember the day I took grandpapa's new railway rug to make a carpet to our tent, and left it out all night, and it rained and all the colour ran? And do you remember when I pushed Gerald into the pond to catch the little fishes, and how he stood shivering and crying?"
"Ah, yes, indeed," said nurse. "But speaking of ponds—the one at Ansdell was nothing; but those nasty pits or pools in the fields near by: you never go near them? Your grandpapa has a real fear of them, and he told me not to let you forget what he'd said."
"No fear," we all answered, "we never go near them. We promised him we wouldn't, nurse."
Then off we ran.
"Even if she isn't there, she's sure to have left some message for us, like the last time," said Gerald as we ran. "I wish she'd bring us some butter-scotch."
"Gerald!" exclaimed Tib and I, "what sort of ideas have you? Fairies and butter-scotch mixed in the same breath. I only hope," Tib went on, "that she won't think we're ungrateful for the books, or that we don't care for them, because we had to leave them in the conservatory."
"If only she's there, we can explain everything," said I.