Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/31

32 "Well!" they said simultaneously, and Lucilla added, "Never mind about tea. Can you carve a chicken?"

"I can try,"

"Try, then, in the name of the Prophet!" said Lucilla. "I can cut bread. If you can't carve, chop; our lives are saved. I prefer the liver wing. I've never had one, but the important people in books always have the liver wing. You can have all the legs. Oh, our guardian is really a gem. Isn't it the loveliest supper? He must be a man of perfect taste and sensibility. Pass the salad, please. This doesn't look like a wing, it looks all bone; give me some off the top—yes, that white part. No, I don't want to wash my hands first. I don't want to do anything but eat for quite a long time."

When they had eaten, they went all over the little house and found a tiny kitchen and scullery, and upstairs three small bedrooms choked with their luggage. From the windows they saw a large garden, painted with many bright flowers and rich with the promise of fruit-trees. "It's rather a dear little bandbox," said Lucilla. "I wonder if our mysterious guardian will come to-night or to-morrow?"

When they had explored every hole and corner and shelf and cupboard, and had tried the piano and gone all over the garden, they sat down to wait.

"We won't go to bed till twelve," said Jane, "in case he comes. And if he doesn't, it will be rather a lark to sit up till twelve anyway."

But by twelve o'clock he had not come, so they went to bed. They were roused at eight o'clock by a knocking at the door, which repeated itself as they hastily dressed after shouting "Coming!" through the window. Through the glass of the hall door they saw a manly figure.

"Here he is!" they both said. And so he was. But he was only the postman. He had one letter—a very large, fat, registered one. It was addressed to Miss Jane Quested and Miss Lucilla Craye, and they both signed the green receipt for it.