Mrs. Gray considered a moment. “I will consult with Mr. Lee or Miss Pike about this family. They are both very wise in such matters; and if they approve you shall give something to the little girl. And I promise you, Mary, nobody shall know who gives it.”
CHAPTER X.
MISS PIKE’S STORY.
“Papa, we are starving. Do send us a watermelon!” wrote Mary one day, and sent home the note by little Kittyleen, whose visit was at last over.
Dr. Gray laughed again and again at this pathetic appeal, and chancing to see Mrs. Townsend picking strawberries in her garden, he paused as he went by to tell her how the children were suffering.
“They had plenty day before yesterday,” said she, laughing in her turn. “O doctor, have you ever been out to their camp? They are the most disorderly, wasteful creatures: and just think of the grocer’s bills they are running up.”
“It’s an extravagant piece of business,” assented the doctor; “but they are having a delightful time, something to remember all their lives. It won’t last more than two or three weeks at farthest, and I for one shan’t mind the bills if the little souls don’t starve and are happy.”
“You are just like the general,” returned Mrs. Townsend, with a disapproving smile; and then went into the house to make with her own hands a strawberry short-cake for Miss Pike and Julia Gray to take to Camp Comfort in the sunshade carriage with the other goodies.
It was quite the fashion for the parents, aunts, cousins, and other friends to make little donation visits to the quintette, who always hailed both visitors and viands with joy. But to-day the “favorite friend,” Miss Pike, sister Julia, and the watermelon, coming all together, were almost too much for Mary.