Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/177

178 one to take it on while we go and play at something else. And I suppose if we have Pigs—I mean paying guests—we shall have to have late dinners and dress for it. I don't know why, but that's quite a blissful thought. Don't you think we ought to buy some new clothes?"

"No," said Lucilla, "we shall want all our money for food. There are heaps of lovely things of Aunt Lucy's—far lovelier than we could begin to afford to buy."

"That grey silk," said Jane.

"With the embroidered roses," said Lucilla, and the conversation wandered in a pleasant maze of stuffs and silks and shapes and styles till Jane haled it back to life's highroad by the remark that an advertisement ought to be written out for a cook.

"Mr, Dix said we ought to advertise at once. And we'll post it as we go home," she said.

"You do that and I'll write to Gladys and send her the money to send us some cream. That's the worst of being at school in Devonshire. I suppose Middlesex girls would never even think of wasting their money on cream."

"Mr. Dix said it was a pity we couldn't keep a cow," said Jane. You will observe that already Mr. Dix was quoted as an authority.

That evening a youth knocked at Hope Cottage—a youth in more than tidy clothes and a necktie so evidently the Sunday one that it was difficult to look at anything else. His wrists were red and lumpy and his ears were red. His eyes were down-dropped, and his shyness was such that at first he could say nothing but:

"I thought I'd just call round."

"Yes," said Lucilla, with a wild wonder whether the news of Cedar Court's need of paying guests and of an under-gardener could possibly already be common talk in the neighbourhood, and, if so, whether this was come to offer itself in one of those capacities. Jane came out to the door. This gave him a fresh start.