In a few minutes Flora joined them again; but the poor girl was sweating, and out of breath, she had run so fast in supplying the wants of her little New York friend.
“I believe we are all ready now,” said Josephine, as she took the doughnut and began to nibble at it, just as a mouse nibbles at a piece of cheese.
“If you are not, we will go without you,” replied Edward, whose patience, as the reader has seen, was by no means proof against his sister’s repeated delays.
“There! as true as I’m alive, there is one thing more. I have forgotten my sunshade,” exclaimed Josephine.
“Never mind your sunshade. What do you want of a sunshade when you are going a-fishing?” said Edward, as he moved down the path towards the road.
“O, I can’t go without my sunshade. I should be as brown as an Indian before we got back.”
“No matter if you are. Come along, or else stay at home, and not bother us any longer.”
“Please, Flora, won’t you go up in my room and get it for me? I will do as much for you any time. And we will walk along, and you can overtake us before we have gone far. We will walk slowly.”
It is very likely that Flora thought her young friend was imposing upon her; but without making any reply, she ran for the sunshade. She had to look in quite a number of places before she found it, for Josephine could not always tell where she had left her things; and when Flora overtook the party, she was so weary and out of breath that she did not enjoy the rest of the walk very much.
Do not my readers see by this time what Josephine’s fault was?