"My dear child, it's no use asking me. I'm determined to leave everything
to you children this year. Forget I am your mother. Treat me as an
honoured guest."

But Meg could not possibly go and supervise the men. She had washed her
hair before breakfast, and she sat drinking her coffee in a green turban,
with a dark wet curl stamped on each cheek. Jose, the butterfly, always
came down in a silk petticoat and a kimono jacket.

"You'll have to go, Laura; you're the artistic one."

Away Laura flew, still holding her piece of bread-and-butter. It's so
delicious to have an excuse for eating out of doors, and besides, she loved
having to arrange things; she always felt she could do it so much better
than anybody else.

Four men in their shirt-sleeves stood grouped together on the garden path.
They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big tool-
bags slung on their backs. They looked impressive. Laura wished now that
she had not got the bread-and-butter, but there was nowhere to put it, and
she couldn't possibly throw it away. She blushed and tried to look severe
and even a little bit short-sighted as she came up to them.

"Good morning," she said, copying her mother's voice. But that sounded so
fearfully affected that she was ashamed, and stammered like a little girl,
"Oh--er--have you come--is it about the marquee?"

"That's right, miss," said the tallest of the men, a lanky, freckled
fellow, and he shifted his tool-bag, knocked back his straw hat and smiled
down at her. "That's about it."