The Happy Adventurers | Page 9

the _Swiss Family Robinson_, and let me stay up here."
Tea was laid in the dining-room, where they found Baby already seated in her high chair. She was a very pretty baby, with large dark eyes, silky golden hair, and a dear little mouth parting over two rows of tiny pearly teeth. She gurgled melodiously to her family in the intervals of dropping bits of jammy bread into her mug of milk, and watching them bob about with absorbed interest.
"Good old Mary! She's made potato scones and almond gingerbread." Hugh remarked approvingly. "If you've never tasted real Irish potato scones baked on a girdle, Mollie, you'd better chalk it up, as Bridget says. You split them in two, pop in a lump of butter, shut them up, and eat them. Too soon they are but a sweet dream of the past."
"They'll soon be a horrid dream of the future if you gobble them like that," Prudence said warningly, "and you've forgotten Grizzel's oranges; go and pull three fresh ones, and we'd better send her ginger cake."
The gingerbread was baked in thin oblong squares frosted with white sugar, each child's name being written on its own cake in pink letters. They were most fascinating, and Mollie was charmed to see one with her own name on it. The delightful part about this most unexpected visit, she thought, was the way everyone had apparently expected her. She could not help wondering how the invitation had been sent, but decided that it was better not to ask too many questions.
Hugh departed with Grizzel's oranges, biscuits, and gingerbread, elegantly arranged in a green-rush basket, the Swiss Family Robinson forming the basis of the repast. He returned with a smile upon his face which disclosed two most engaging dimples.
"I've sneaked the ladder," he said. "Won't Frizzy Grizzy be pleased when she finds out! Ha ha! More scones, please."
"She won't mind," Prudence answered placidly, "she knows someone will have to let her down before Mamma comes in. You've had enough jam, Baby darling; let Prudence take off your bib now and wash your handy-pandys. You can have half my gingerbread if you like, Hugh-- hullo, there's Papa!"
There was a sharp double knock at the front door, followed by the sound of someone entering. Prudence set Baby on her feet and bolted helter-skelter across the square hall, flinging herself into the arms of a stout man with a brown beard, who returned her embrace so warmly that Mollie wondered if he had been away from home for some time. He removed his tall silk hat, showing a head as thickly covered with curls as Grizzel's, but the hair was dark and slightly touched with grey.
"Well, my chick-a-biddies," he said, in a delightfully genial voice, beaming upon them all with the kindest blue eyes Mollie had ever seen, "and what has everybody been doing? And where is Grizzel?"
As he spoke he lifted Baby into his arms, ignoring the jammy little fingers, laid a hand on Mollie's head, and looked round inquiringly for his missing daughter.
"She's in my Nest," Hugh replied, "it's finished. Come and see it. You can't climb into it yet, but it looks very nice from the outside. I think I'll arrange a box to pull you and Mamma up in. The zinc-lined box the piano came in would do."
"Thank you, my son," said Papa kindly, "thank you, thank you. At the moment I am rather pressed for time. I have to meet Mamma at Mrs. Taylor's at half-past five, and we are going to the town-hall to hear this wonderful new telephone, as they call it. They say that someone speaking from the post office at Glenelg will be perfectly audible in the town-hall here, a distance of six and a half miles. It sounds almost incredible. What will they discover next! Truly this is an amazing age, and you children may live to see men flying yet."
Hugh had left his gingerbread, which lay forgotten on his plate, and stood before his father flushed with excitement:
"Take me with you, _do_, Papa," he cried. "I'll learn reams of Latin and get up at four o'clock and--"
"Well, get your hat and be quick then," Papa interrupted indulgently. "Prue, my pet, look in my bag and you will find five parcels, one for each young robber. Be fair and amiable, my children. Come, Hugh. Good night, Papa's little angel." He kissed Baby, handed her over to Prudence, put on his hat again, and was off down the wide path between the cypress trees with Hugh hanging on his arm, in less than no time.
"Let's watch from the gate," said Prudence. "Bridget will take Baby. Hurry up, Mollie."
They reached the foot of the garden just in time to see Papa's tall hat disappear round the corner of the road. It