Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/175

 Rh  "Oh, she'll come fast enough," said Mabel. "She's cheeky enough for anything. Do you 'spose she told her mother about it? She said she was going to."

"Pshaw!" said Marjory, "she was always threatening to tell her mother but nothing ever came of it. If she'd told her mother half the things she said she was going to, she wouldn't have had time to eat or sleep."

It was hopeless, the girls had decided, to attempt to mend the ruined photograph, so, at Bettie's suggestion, they had sorrowfully cut it into four pieces of equal size, which they divided between them. They had just laid the precious fragments tenderly away in their treasure boxes when the doorbell rang with such a loud, prolonged, jangling peal that everybody jumped.

"Laura!" exclaimed the four girls.

"No," said Jean, cautiously drawing back the curtain of the front window and peeping out. "It's Mrs. Milligan!"