Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/81

Rh Win would have been home, or you here, and I’d still have said he. Coming with me to get ready to see the Moultons, Marygold? They’ll be here so late we shall have to get dressed for supper before they come.”

“Yes. Florimel, if Mrs. Moulton saw you wearing that torn skirt I don’t know what might happen to her,” said Mary, joining Jane at the foot of the stairs.

“She’ll see me wearing a whole skirt. Wait till I put Chum out,” said Florimel.

Mary and Jane did not take Florimel’s “wait” literally. They knew that putting Chum out could hardly be called putting—it involved long coaxing and wiles, and feigned enthusiasm and excitement over a cat in the garden, which had no existence there or elsewhere. So the two older girls went on up to their rooms, leaving Florimel to the persuasion of Chum.

“What do you say it is?” asked Jane a little later, standing in Mary’s chamber door, her radiant hair falling over her white skirt and flying around her face in a glory to which Mary never became thoroughly accustomed. Jane was drying her face as she spoke; she never could be kept in the proper spot long enough to finish any part of her toilet. Mary was bent over,