“Where’s Bridget? Where’s Bridget Ruan?” one of the tennis-players called suddenly. “We’re making up a new set, and we want her!”
“Bid! Bid! Bridget, where are you?” two or three of them began to call.
Bridget shook her hair over her ears to deaden the sound, and went on writing.
She sat in a little dilapidated arbor in a far corner of the garden. It contained a rickety, dusty table, on which papers and books were untidily scattered. The arbor was surrounded by long rank grass, uncut since the spring, and drenched with the recent rains. The path she had made for herself through it was plainly visible in the trampled, broken-down stalks which extended up to the door.
The summer-house was screened from the rest of the garden by a clump of lime-trees, and in spite of frequent impatient calls, Bridget had been in possession the whole of the afternoon.
“Bid! Bridget!” the cries grew louder and more urgent.
“Bother!” whispered the girl, stamping her foot impatiently and writing faster.
“Bridget! Miss Ruggles wants you. Where are you?”
The girl uttered a smothered, furious exclamation, but otherwise paid no attention.
“She’s never in the summer-house, through all this awfully wet grass!” she heard a nearer voice exclaim. “Run and see, Dulcie; your frocks are short!”