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There then remained one precious hour before tea-time, and in summer there was an immediate rush into the garden and fields. At last the welcome sound came. Nancy was generally the first to announce it, but to-day Pennie was beforehand. "It's begun, Miss Grey," she exclaimed, starting up so hastily that cotton, scissors, and thimble, all fell on the ground.
Pennie sighed to remember all these drawbacks, but she determined not to be beaten without an effort, and directly after tea she set about preparing a box to receive all possible contributions. Would David lend his china cottage for the purpose?
"Why isn't Nancy to go too?" asked Ambrose one afternoon as he carefully put the last touches to a picture he was drawing for Dickie; it was a fancy portrait of Pennie learning to dance, with her dress held out very wide, and an immense toe pointed in the air.
"And we'll call him `a distinguished martyr," added Pennie as she moved slowly away, "because I can't remember any of their real names." Pennie was never satisfied to leave things as they were; she liked to adorn them with fancies and make up stories about them, and her busy little mind was always ready to set to work on the smallest event of the children's lives.
Ethelwyn was very impatient long before the shopping was done. "Oh, spend the rest in sweets," she said over and over again in the midst of Pennie's difficulties. But Pennie only shook her head, and would not even look at chocolate creams or sugar-candy until she had done her business satisfactorily.
"You mean `confiscate," put in Pennie; "but I do wish, David, you wouldn't try to use such long words when you write for the magazine. There's a lot in the `Habits of the Pig' I can't make out, and it's such a trouble to copy them." "I'm not going to lose my cushion at any rate," said Nancy, springing suddenly on David, so that he rolled over on the floor.
She was very poor, and had a great many children and a bad husband." Here Nurse shook her head. "What do you give her tea-leaves for?" asked Pennie. "Why, my dear, when folks are too poor to buy fresh tea, they're glad enough to get it after it's been once used."
"And only think, Pennie," continued Ambrose; "she offered us something, she called ambrosia. I daresay it was made of toadstools and poisonous herbs picked at night." "She said it was honey and goat's milk," finished David; "but we didn't taste it."
"Do you come and try yours on, Miss Pennie," said Nurse as she unpacked them, "there's no getting hold of Miss Nancy." So Pennie put it on with a little secret hope that it might be a prettier bonnet than the last; she looked in the glass, and then followed the exclamation with which this chapter begins.
Pennie, who was a great reader, and always anxious to carry out something she had read about, inclined towards the palace; but the others had less lofty minds. It quite contented them to make a snow man, to put one of Andrew's pipes in his mouth and a battered hat on his head, and stick in bits of coal for his eyes. "Isn't he lovely?" Nancy would exclaim when all these adornments were complete.
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