Page:Lolly Willowes - 1926.djvu/106

 Marion, rode in the other. And we went to have tea in Potts's Dingle."

"With sponge cakes and raspberry jam, do you remember?"

"Yes. And milk surging in a whisky bottle. Will you have thatch or slate, Aunt Lolly? Slate is very practical."

"Thatch is more motherly. Anyhow, I shall have a pump."

"Will it be an indoor or an outdoor pump? I ask, for I hope to pump on it quite often."

"You will come to stay with me, won't you, Titus?"

Laura was a little cast-down. It did not look, just then, as if any one else wanted to come and stay with her at Great Mop. But Titus was as sympathetic as she had hoped. They spent the rest of the evening telling each other how she would live. By half-past ten their conjectures had become so fantastic that the rest of the family thought the whole scheme was nothing more than one of Lolly's odd jokes that nobody was ever amused by. Henry took heart. He rallied Laura, supposing that when she lived at Great Mop she would start hunting for catnip again, and become the village witch.