"Look here, Renny," she said suddenly; "for goodness' sake don't begin to point morals. It's bad enough to have an old aunt here without your turning into a mentor. We all know what you want to say, but please don't say it. Haven't we been scolded and directed and ordered about all day long? We don't want you to do it, too."
"Hullo!" suddenly cried Briar; "if this isn't Nancy King! Oh, welcome, Nancy--welcome! We are glad to see you."
Nancy King was a spirited and bright-looking girl who lived about a mile away. Her father had a large farm which was known as The Hollies. He had held this land for many years, and was supposed to be in flourishing circumstances. Nancy was his only child. She had been sent to a fashionable school at Brighton, and considered herself quite a young lady. She came whenever she liked to The Dales, and the girls often met her in the Forest, and enjoyed her society vastly. Now in the most fashionable London attire, Nancy sailed across the lawn, calling out as she did so:
"Hullo, you nine! You look like the Muses. What's up now? I have heard most wonderful, astounding whispers."
"Oh, Nancy, we're all so glad to see you!" said Briar. She left her seat, ran up to the girl, and took her hand. "Come and sit here--here in the midst of our circle. We have such a lot to say to you!"
"And I have a lot to say to you. But, dear me! how grand we are!"
Nancy's twinkling black eyes looked with mock approval at Verena's plain but very neat gray dress, and at the equally neat costumes of the other girls. Then finally she gazed long and pensively at Penelope, who, in an ugly dress of brown holland, was looking back at her with eyes as black and defiant as her own.
"May I ask," said Nancy slowly, "what has this nursery baby to do in the midst of the grown-ups?"
"I'm not nursery," said Penelope, her face growing crimson; "I'm schoolroom. Don't tell me I'm nursery, because I'm not. We're all schoolroom, and we're having a right good time."
"Indeed! Then I may as well remark that you don't look like it. You look, the whole nine of you, awfully changed, and as prim as prim can be. 'Prunes and prisms' wouldn't melt in your mouths. You're not half, nor quarter, as nice as you were when I saw you last. I've just come home for good, you know. I mean to have a jolly time at Margate by-and-by. And oh! my boy cousins and my two greatest chums at school are staying with me now at The Hollies. The girls' names are Amelia and Rebecca Perkins. Oh, they're fine! Do give me room to squat between you girls. You are frightfully stand-off and prim."