Next morning, as they were coming out from the dining room after breakfast, Mrs. Merrill stopped a few minutes to talk with the steward and the girls knew immediately that something nice was coming.
“What do you think,” she asked as she joined them a minute later, “of having a picnic luncheon to-day? Remember that pretty street we rode south on yesterday? All those old Spanish houses were built years and years ago. The queer one, that has no garden in front, is supposed to be the oldest house in America. When I was here before the kind lady who takes care of the place sometimes let folks eat their luncheon in the garden by the old well. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Of course it would be jolly and both Alice and Mary Jane were eager to be off.
“Let’s go down that same street we rode on, Mother,” suggested Alice, “because when we were riding we didn’t see a thing but the ponies and the road and I’d like to see everything--every single thing, in this nice old town.”
“Very well,” agreed Mrs. Merrill, “that’s what we’ll do. Our luncheon will be ready in a very little while. Let’s get our mail and tell Ellen that Mary Jane can’t play this morning and I expect by that time it will be waiting for us.”
Sure enough! By the time all necessary errands were finished the steward came to the lobby with the luncheon all neatly packed in a nice box.
“And if that isn’t enough,” he said, with a glance in Mary Jane’s direction, “maybe I can get the little ladies some ice cream when they come back this afternoon.”
Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane agreed to carry the lunch box between them--a block a-piece--because Alice had her camera to look after. They stopped just long enough to buy a new roll of films at the nearest shop and then they set off down the pretty, narrow, old street.
The many palm trees, which Mary Jane insisted on calling “trees with trimming on the top,” the gay poinsettias which bloomed everywhere and the crimson and yellow blossoms on the vines which covered porches and hedges made the street look very beautiful. Mary Jane had to pinch herself two or three times again to make sure that she really was awake! She simply couldn’t realize that up at home her playmates were making snow forts and going to school.