Part 7 (1/2)
”Hullo, girls!” said Hugh, coot an idea”
[Illustration: GRIZZEL THREW IN A SMALL HANDFUL OF TEA]
Mollie turned to look at Hugh He had grown a little taller, she thought, but was as clear-eyed and arden, full of roses--thousands and thousands of roses, mostly pale pink They were loose-petalled and exquisitely sweet The children paused for ainto the house, and all four sniffed up the delicate fragrance appreciatively
”That's h, with an extra loud sniff ”Scent! Let's uinea a drop to buy, and we couldthe rose-bushes--they are simply packed full of buds behind the flowers I have been reading about it It's quite easy to do; you merely have to extract the essential oil from the petals and there you are I'll show you after tea”
They passed through the porch into the house There was no hall; they walked straight into the sitting-room, where a table was spread with tea, and Miss Hilton, a rather faded-looking lady of e, was already seated behind the tea-pot
”Go and wash your hands, children,” she said, in a voice that matched her looks, ”and s into the room like this I don't knohat your visitor will think, I aland”
Mollie glanced round at the other three She herself stood behind Miss Hilton and was therefore not within that lady's line of vision
She winked largely with her left eye, and a smile of relief travelled round the room
Tea was a silent ood that Mollie thought it must have alleviated the unfortunate lot of the Children of Israel considerably Hugh was thinking out his plan forin particular, as she was too fond of doing; Grizzel's olden cherries, and other possible and soolden achieve and intimate conversation with a family of bread-and-butter--otherwise the beddy-buts--which had found a temporary home upon her plate Miss Hilton poured out tea absent-mindedly, and seldo elbows on the table
As soon as the ain, and, once outside, their tongues began to h announced, ”and irls will have to helpall the time, and someone must keep me supplied with fresh rose-petals”
”I can't doto make jaather cherries I've got one or t ideas”--Mollie thought the fareat on ideas-- ”but, if you'll solder up my jam tins, I'll help with your attar”
”I'll tell you what,” said Prue, ”we'll have a secret breakfast”
”What's a secret breakfast?” asked Mollie
”You'll see in a et up and pull the cherries and cut them open, and we can pick the roses afterwards, when they are wars ready now,” said Grizzel
So while Hugh went off to a little old hut, which served theirls set out to inspect the cherry trees, and engaged in the pleasing task of tasting a few cherries off each tree to decide which had the finest flavour
”I think they are all absolutely topping,” said Mollie ”I don't kno you can tell which is best”
”What funny words you use,” said Grizzel ”Topping!”
”Well--top-hole then, or ripping, or great, or first-class, or jolly good”
Both hearers laughed ”You had better not let Miss Hilton hear you,”
said Prue, ”or she will tell Ma' a hundred tiarden, which was laid out on the terrace i by the rose-bed, which was banked up for two feet or so to keep the soil fro down in the rainy season Prudence and Grizzel stopped at a corner where, in a sheltered angle, lay a low pile of bricks built up four-square with a hollow centre
”This is our fire-place,” Prue explained to Mollie ”When we get up very early we make a fire here and boil tea and have a secret breakfast, because proper breakfast isn't till nine o'clock when Miss Hilton is ry--besides, it is a lark”
”Write out 'lark' one hundred times, my dear Prudence,” said Grizzel, in a voice so exactly like Miss Hilton's that Mollie looked round with a start, and the other two laughed