Page:Mistress Madcap (1937).pdf/78

 Charity gave another cautious glance at the stair door before she answered.

"Knowst aught of a trip to Trenton, Hitty?" she asked, then.

Mehitable's gaze widened. "A trip to Trenton!" she cried incredulously.

"Hush!" Charity frowned in quick alarm. "Yes, I heard Mother and Father talking of it," she went on in a low voice. "Cousin Eliza's letter came a day or so ago. And, Hitty, she wants us to come to Trenton to spend the holidays with her!"

"La! La!" Mehitable's butter activities almost ceased in her delighted and surprised acceptance of this piece of news. "And what did they decide, Cherry—Mother and Father, I mean?"

For this was before the days when young people were allowed their own opinions upon projects, even when those same plans intimately concerned themselves.

"They had not yet decided," Charity answered. "Mother said it would take a monstrous lot of thought, deciding to let us go to a very hotbed of Hessians, e'en though we should be under the protection and care of so rich a lady as Cousin Eliza."

"And what did Father say?" asked Mehitable eagerly.

"Father said that a trip to Trenton"

"And who talks of a trip to Trenton, I should like to know?" said an unexpected voice abruptly as Mistress Condit entered the kitchen. She smothered a smile at Mehitable's hasty disappearance around the