"Well, what's the matter?" interrupted Madge. "What have you got to grumble at now, I should like to know?"
She spoke sharply, for, with all her kindness, she could not bear to have the younger ones finding fault with anything she did. So long as they were duly grateful she would work hard to amuse them; but the moment they began to criticise her conduct in any way there was trouble.
"Do you think you could have chosen anything better yourself?" she said scornfully. "You had better try next time if you think it's so easy!"
"I didn't say the things were not nice things," observed John in his quiet obstinate way. "I never meant that. Only I can't understand how you spent our money. That's all."
"Why it's as simple as A B C!" broke out Madge. "Just listen, you little silly, and I'll tell you. I took five shillings and sevenpence, didn't I?"
"Of course you did! In the brown bag," answered Betty, although nobody had spoken to her.
John merely nodded his head to show that he was following the argument up to this point.
"And as the money belonged to us all we were all to share alike," proceeded Madge rapidly. "So I got a ship and a doll and a knife, each costing a shilling. And we had one apiece. That's three shillings. Then the whip and the trumpet and the tea-pot cost sixpence each. That comes to four shillings and sixpence. And the packets of sugar-plums, and pipes for blowing soap-bubbles, come to tenpence. That makes five shillings and four-pence. And—and—"
"And that's all!" interrupted John. "But you took five shillings and sevenpence in the brown bag, you know. I remember counting it; didn't we, Betty?"
"Oh, I'm well aware of that!" cried Madge impatiently. "If you will only just keep quiet I can make it right in a moment. I must have added up wrongly while you were chattering." And spreading all the purchases out on the table she tried to count them more carefully over again, repeating their prices as she did so. But it was no use. Try as she might her accounts would not come perfectly right. There was threepence missing, and Madge could not account for it at all.