Following his example, she began to carry the plates of sandwiches, sausage rolls, meat pies, bread and butter, cakes and biscuits of every variety from the table to the hand-cart. On the top they balanced carefully the plates of jelly and blanc-mange and dishes of trifle, and round the sides they packed armfuls of crackers.
At the end she whispered softly, "What's it for, William?"
"It's the secret," he said. "The crorse-me-throat secret I told you."
"Am I going to help?" she said in delight.
He nodded.
"Jus' wait a minute," he added, and crept from the dining-room to the hall and upstairs.
He returned with a bundle of clothing which he proceeded to arrange in the garden. He first donned his own red dressing gown and then wound a white scarf round his head, tying it under his chin so that the ends hung down.
"I'm makin' believe I'm Father Christmas," he deigned to explain. "An' I'm makin' believe this white stuff is hair an' beard. An' this is for you to wear so's you won't get cold."
He held out a little white satin cloak edged with swansdown.
"Oh, how lovely, William! But it's not my cloak! It's Sadie Murford's!"