A Houseful of Girls | Page 4

ache. I've often wished we could do something for the Mission; but I'm so poor, and I sha'n't get any goose-money till autumn. I wish we could think of some plan by which we could make some more. Chrissie and I are always talking about it. There seems so few ways in which girls of fourteen can make money. We thought of writing and asking the editor of the employment column; but mother laughed at us, and said it was nonsense. It's not nonsense to us!"
"If we could only have a sale of work," said Lilias slowly. She was still staring dreamily out of the window, and hardly realised what she was saying, but the other four girls turned sharply towards each other, and a flash of delight passed from one pair of eyes to the other.
"Ah-ah!" sighed Elsie.
"Splendiferous!" cried Nan.
"How simp-lay love-lay!" drawled Christabel, with the languid elegance of manner for which she was distinguished; and Agatha beamed broadly all over her good-humoured face, oblivious of the sufferings of the poor in the prospect of her own amusement.
"What fun we should have! I'd bake the cakes and manage the refreshment stall! Tea and coffee, threepence a cup; lemonade, fourpence; fruit salad, sixpence a plate!"
"I'd sell toffee in tins, and have a pin-cushion table, and make every single soul I know give me a contribution."
"I'd give my new oak bracket. No, it's too big. I couldn't spare that; but I'd carve something else; and make little brass trays and panels. `High art stall: Miss Margaret Rendell. Objects of bigotry and virtue to be handed over to her,' and don't you forget it!"
"I'll take visitors out in the punt at threepence a head. I'm so stupid that I can't do any work, but the idea is mine, and that ought to count for something," said Lilias; and a vision rose before her eyes of a slim white figure gracefully handling the pole as the punt glided down the stream. Punting was a most becoming occupation; on the whole she could not have hit on a pleasanter manner of helping the cause. "I daresay I shall make quite a lot of money!" she added cheerfully; and her sisters laughed with the half-indulgent, half-derisive laughter with which they were accustomed to greet Lilias's sayings. She was so sweetly unconscious of her own selfishness, and looked so pretty as she turned her big bewildered eyes from one to the other, that they had not the heart to disturb her equanimity.
"The punt is a good idea," admitted Nan, "for people are always pleased to go on the river, and we must turn our advantages to account. A garden sale, that's what we must have! Little tables dotted about the lawn beneath Japanese umbrellas; tea in a tent, and seats under the trees. We can use all the properties that mother keeps for her garden parties, and make it just as pretty and attractive as can be. I shouldn't wonder if we made a lot of money, for we shall be so original and ingenious. People are so stupid in this world. I always feel I could do things so much better myself. Who wants to go to a stuffy old bazaar in the Mission Room? No one does! They go from a sense of duty. Mother groans and says, `Oh dear, if I could only give a subscription and be done with it! More cosies and chairbacks! I've a drawerful already!' And bazaar things are hideous! Father gave me ten shillings to spend at the Christmas sale, and I wandered round and round like a lost sheep, and couldn't see a single thing that I wanted. In the end I bought a cover for Bradshaw. It wasn't a bit useful, for I never have a Bradshaw; but it was the nicest thing I saw. Now, let us solemnly resolve not to have anything on our stalls that will not reflect credit on our judgment. Nothing ugly, nothing useless, nothing vulgar--"
"Impossible, my dear! Can't be managed. It's the law of Nature that the kindest-hearted people have the least taste. I don't know why it should be so, but it is, and I'll prove it to you. If we announced that we were going to have a sale of work and asked for contributions, who would be the first people to respond?" Christabel thrust out her left hand and began checking off the fingers with dramatic emphasis. "Miss Ross,--Mrs Hudson,--Mary Field,--old Jane Evans. `So pleased to hear that the dear children are interesting themselves in the welfare of their poor brothers and sisters, and I've brought round a few wool mats as a little expression of sympathy!'--that's Mrs Ross! Then Mary Ann would hobble up with a parcel wrapped up in a handkerchief, and kiss us all