'Dearest child,' said mamma, 'as if we would mind that, if _you_ were comfortable.'
'Comfortable,' she repeated; 'that is no word for what I am going to be.'
'And how long may you stay?' asked Geordie.
'As long as you like to have me,' was the reply. 'Granny is expecting her old friend to-morrow, and I _know_ they will be much happier without me. I have a letter from Granny for you, auntie, explaining her plans. But there's no hurry about that. I want to begin unpacking. And what a lovely arrangement all this is!' she went on admiringly, touching the arm of mamma's chair as she spoke, 'nearly as beautiful as my waggon!'
Then the history of Miss Trevor's present had to be related, and all its wonderful perfections exhibited. And then Hoskins appeared with a cup of fresh tea for Miss Theresa, which she offered with a face all over smiles, for Taisy was a great favourite of hers. And 'Miss Theresa' drank the tea, and devoured bread and butter and cake in a most gratifying way; and then she _had_ to run through the Hut, and see all that we had done to it.
So that, after all, it was rather late before we got to the unpacking of the waggon, though Hoskins and Margery and Dawson had already done a good deal.
We _did_ get everything unpacked that night, but only in a rough-and-ready way. We should have liked to go on till midnight or later even, working by moonlight, for it was full moon and very clear weather just then, but this mamma would not hear of.
And Hoskins in her sensible way pointed out how much more nicely and neatly we could finish it all by daylight with the straw and packing cloths all tidied away, which she would 'see to' first thing in the morning.
She and mamma had already arranged for Taisy to sleep in my room that night, by Esmé's sleeping with mamma, and by taking out the end of Esmé's cot, to make it longer--long enough after a fashion, for _me_.
How we laughed, Taisy and I, though any other girl would have been tired after all she had done, and the tiresomely slow drive from Wetherford! Mamma was obliged to knock on the--wall, I was going to say--but of course it was not a wall, only a wooden partition, to tell us to be quiet. I never knew any one with such spirits as Taisy--not only high spirits, but _nice_ ones, for she was never boisterous, and she knew in a moment if you were not inclined for laughing or joking, though her fun was always there, ready to bubble up again at the right moment. She was full of sympathy too, in spite of her cheerfulness; no one could possibly have called her heartless.