Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/196

176 it in, and Win bribed the chambermaid to help us, and she did, and it has ridden up here as contented as we were! Even when Willoughby let the car out, to show what it could do, it never minded a speck! So I knew you’d be glad we came along and saved one starving thing! If everybody saved just one, there wouldn’t be one left to suffer! Isn’t that a hard thing to know, when they won’t do it?”

“You certainly expect your hearers to sort out sentences, Mellie!” cried Mary.

Willoughby, apparently without consciousness that his position forbade such comment, said:

“My word, she’s a charming child! We’ve had a great time with Miss Florimel and her protégée in the basket, coming up!”

Mary had an instant in which to wonder at this freedom in a well-trained English servant, as she said:

“I suppose it’s a cat, Florimel? You haven’t said, you know.”

“Silver-gray ground colour; broad black stripes!” cried Florimel. “It will be a beauty. Win pretended coming up he heard the wind rattle its bones through the basket, and that he thought some one was stoning the car, but you’ll