pastry, and promised to have them baked and ready by the time Miss
Pooley was gone. Emily was in a good temper too. The prospect of being
free from the children all day, and of having no meals to get for them
till supper, quite cheered her. She even, without being asked, cut them
some sandwiches, filled a bottle with milk, and produced a store of
apples, which she packed in their basket. When the children, having
escaped from patient, easy-going Miss Pooley, rushed out to the kitchen
for their pasties and milk, and found things in this unusually happy
state, they marvelled at their good fortune, and accepted it thankfully.

"Fanny and Emily are quite nice sometimes," remarked Betty, as they left
the house, "only the worst of it is you never know when they are going
to be. Sometimes they laugh at everything one says, and another time
they grumble."

"To-day they are like people are when you are ill and they are sorry for
you," said Tony, who had been puzzling himself for some minutes to know
how to express what he wanted to. "I fink they are sorry for us 'cause
Aunt Pike is coming."

"'O wise young judge!'" said Dan, "I shouldn't be surprised if you were
right." Dan had begun to read Shakespeare, and was full of quotations.
"It is rather like living in the shadow of the gallows. I expect people
in the French Revolution felt as we do."

"I don't feel the least little bit like French Revolutions, or gallows,
or shadows, or even Aunt Pike and darling Anna, on such a glorious day
as this," cried Kitty joyfully. "I can't think of them, and I am not
going to--yet. Now, if you are all ready, let's race."