“And it’s this. You’ve often heard talk of the old oak at Barnby.”
“Under which Queen Elizabeth is said to have drunk a cup of cider?” asked Phoena, eagerly.
“Yes, quite right, that’s the tree. Well, suppose now you all make an expedition to see it. It’s seven miles there, every step, but you can take the little donkey-trap, and that’ll carry four of you at a time, as well as the dinner and tea baskets, for you’d best not set out to come home till it’s got cool. Now, do you think you’d like to go?”
“Of course we should,” cried the children in chorus.
Phoena, noting the look of relief on Mrs. Busson’s face at the unanimous consent to her plan, guessed the old lady’s good reasons for arranging that they should be out of the house for that whole day.
“And now you’ll finish your breakfast nice and quietly,” besought Mrs. Busson, “and then you’ll just stop indoors out of the sun, till you are ready to start. The house is still topsy-turvy after yesterday’s upset, so we don’t want more little feet running about than can be helped. Besides, poor Miss Di must be kept quiet.”
“Is she better to-day?” asked Fay, timidly, feeling almost guilty in asking after one of the culprits.
“Not much, I’m afraid; she hasn’t had a wink of sleep.”
“And Andrew,” asked Jack, “will he come with us?”
“No, sir, that he certainly won’t,” said Nanny, appearing at the door, to fetch a cup of milk for Di, “Master Andrew’s got to stop at home to be punished, and a rare punishment we’ve thought out for him, too, Mr. Busson and I.”