There were still three hours and a half of precious daylight. What should be done with them?
Eyebright and a knot of girls, whose homes lay in the same direction with hers, walked slowly down the street together. It was a beautiful afternoon, with sunshine of that delicious sort which only June knows how to brew,—warm, but not burning; bright, but not dazzling. It lay over the walk in broad golden patches, broken by soft, purple-blue shadows from the elms, which had just put out their light leaves and looked like fountains of green spray tossed high in air. There was a sweet smell of hyacinths and growing grass and cherry-blossoms; altogether it was not an afternoon to spend in the house, and the children felt the fact.
"I don't want to go home yet," said Molly Prime. "Let's do something pleasant all together instead."
"I wish my swing were ready, and we'd all have a swing in it," said Laura Wheelwright. "Tom said he would put it up to-day, but mother begged him not, because she said I had a cold and would be sure to run in the damp grass and wet my feet. What shall we do? We might go for a walk to Round Pond; will you?"
"No; I'll tell you," burst in Eyebright. "Don't let's do that, because if we do, the big boys will see us and want to come too, and then we sha'n't have any fun. Let's all go into our barn; there's lots of hay up in the loft, and we'll open the big window and make thrones of hay to sit on and tell stories. It'll be just as good as out-doors, and no one will know where we are or come to interrupt us. Don't you think it would be nice? Do come, Laura."
"Delicious! Come along, girls," answered Laura, crumpling her soft sun-bonnet into a heap, and throwing it up into the air, as if it had been a ball.
"Oh, may we come too?" pleaded little Tom and Rosy Bury.
"No, you can't," answered their sister, Kitty, sharply. "You'd be tumbling down and getting frightened, and all sorts of things. You'd better run right home by yourselves."
The little ones were silent, but they looked anxiously at Eyebright.
"I think they might come, Kitty," she said. "They're almost always good, and there's nothing in the loft to hurt them. Yes; they can come."