“This house 'looks as if it was going to ride out'! as Miss Miranda says,” exclaimed Alice. “Do let us try to straighten it before Sunday! The closets are all in snarls, the kitchen's in a mess, and the less said about the back bedroom the better.”
Accordingly, inspired by Alice's enthusiasm, they began to work and to improve the hours like a whole hiveful of busy bees. They put on big aprons and washed pans and pots that had been evaded for two days, made fish-balls for breakfast, dusted, scrubbed, washed, mended, darned, and otherwise reduced the house to that especial and delicious kind of order which is likened unto apple-pie. And thus one week of the joys and trials of this merry half-a-dozen housekeepers was over and gone.
|MONDAY morning broke. Such a cold, dismal, drizzly morning! The wind whistled and blew about the cottage, until Lilia suggested tying the clothes-line round the chimneys and fastening it to the strong pine-trees in front, for greater safety. It snowed at six o'clock, it hailed at seven, rained at eight, stopped at nine, and presently began to go through the same varied programme. After breakfast, Bell went to the window and stood dreamily flattening her nose against the pane, while the others busied themselves about their several tasks.
“Well, girls,” said she at length, “we've had four different kinds of weather this morning, so it may clear off after all, though I confess it doesn't look like it. It's too stormy to go anywhere, or for anybody to come to us, so we shall have to try violently in every possible way to amuse ourselves. I must run over to Miss Miranda's for the milk before it rains harder. Perhaps I shall stumble into some excitement on the way; who knows!”
So saying, she ran out, and in a few minutes appeared in the yard wrapped in a bright red water-proof, the hood pulled over her head, and framing her roguish, rosy face. In ten minutes she returned breathless from a race across the garden, and a vain attempt to keep her umbrella right side out. She entered the room in her usual breezy way, leaving the doors all open, and sank into a chair, with an expression of mysterious mirth in her eyes.
“Guess what's happened!” she asked, with sparkling eyes. “I have the most enormous, improbable, unguessable surprise for you; you never will think, and anyway I can't wait to tell, so here it is: We are all invited to tea this afternoon with Miss Miranda and Miss Jane! Isn't that 'ridikilis'?”