Jill's Red Bag Part 14

"It will be money well spent," Mr. Errington said, "for it will be the means of telling those poor folk of the love of the Saviour."

"And you will have the honour, Jill dear, of starting the collection,"

said Mrs. Errington.

"It's a pity," said Jill with knitted brows, "that you can't get every one to give you their tenth."

"I don't think there are many people who do give their tenth," said the rector.

"Miss Falkner gives all hers to the Church Missionary Society," Jill went on; "but Jack and b.u.mps and me thought we'd like to see where our money went."

"Wise little woman!"

Mr. Errington emptied the bag, and delighted Jill by giving her a formal receipt for it, and entering the sum in an account book. She ran away quite happy, waving her scarlet bag in the air, and wishing with all her heart that birthdays and Christmas, and all such occasions for receiving presents, would come every day.

"Mona is going to have a party," announced Jack one day soon after this. "I went into the drawing-room to give Miss Webb her pencil that I picked up, and she and Mona were talking about it. It is to be next Wednesday."

The children were just beginning their afternoon lessons; and Jill was washing her slate preparatory to doing a sum.

"How jolly!" she cried. "I hope she'll let us come to it. When is it to be? Is it a dinner party?"

"No, a garden party. It's going to be a very grand one. There's a band coming, and a tent for fruit and ices, and there will be tennis and croquet, and bowls and----"

"Now, Jack," said Miss Falkner quietly, "that is enough. Lessons now, and talk after."

It was hard to obey, but Jack put a restraint upon himself, and when lessons were over Jill determined to get no more news second-hand.

"Come on, b.u.mps. I'm going to ask Mona about it."

The little girls found their sister in her bedroom, getting ready for a drive.

"We've come to ask about the party," said Jill, who always went straight to the point. "We can come into it, can't we?"

Mona laughed, then she sat down in an easy-chair and took b.u.mps upon her lap.

"I hardly ever see you now," she said; "Miss Falkner keeps you all in such order. Why, b.u.mps, you are growing quite heavy."

"Yeth," a.s.sented b.u.mps, "I thmashed Polly's head by stepping on it. She's my thecond betht wax-doll, Mona!"

"You'll let us come to the party?" asked Jill persuasively.

"Yes, if you behave nicely. There may be two other children coming. Little Indian nieces of Mrs. Moxon's."

"Heathens?" questioned Jill.

Mona laughed merrily.

"Good gracious, no! What a ridiculous child you are."

Jill coloured up at once.

"I like boys better than girls," she said in her stubborn tone. "I know I shan't like them."

"You must be civil and kind to them, or else I shall send you back to the school-room. But perhaps that will be no punishment. I think you must have altered your mind about governesses, Jill."

"Yes," said Jill in a different tone. "But Miss Falkner is not like a governess. She's very fond of us, she says so!"

"Extraordinary! You don't say so!"

Mona laughed again, then put b.u.mps off her lap.

"Now run away, small people, and remember if you appear in the garden on Wednesday, you must be in the cleanest frocks and the sweetest tempers. Otherwise you must make yourselves scarce."

"Like the children walking to the Golden City," said b.u.mps trotting after Jill.

Jill looked down at her with troubled eyes.

"Sometimes I wonder where I am," she said, moved by the impulse of the moment to confide in her little sister. "I don't believe I get on very fast. I'm always losing my temper, and that means dirtying my frock."

"And then you have to wash it," said b.u.mps cheerfully.

"Yes," said Jill, with a light in her eyes; "I can do that, at least I can ask to have it done, but--" and here she relapsed into gloom again.

"I sometimes wonder if it is ever clean for more than a minute!"

Wednesday came, and the three children sadly tried Miss Falkner's patience at lessons.

She closed books at last, and sent them out into the garden to play before their early dinner. They longed to go into Mona's portion of the grounds, but the head gardener kept them back. Tents were being erected; servants bustled about, and Mona herself, with Miss Webb and one or two gentlemen, seemed to be superintending everything herself.

At four o'clock Jill and b.u.mps, arrayed in their best white frocks, were down on the front lawn awaiting the arrival of guests. Miss Falkner in a pretty grey dress and hat stood talking to Miss Webb under the trees, and Mona, looking radiant in her youth and loveliness, dressed like her little sisters in pure white, with a spray of delicate pink roses in her breast, was talking and laughing with a few of her house guests. Jack presently came up to his sister. He was dressed in his white sailor-suit, and looked stiff and uncomfortable.

"Oh, Jill, I say, do let's get out of this. It's so dull and proper. You and b.u.mps look like the china figures on the school-room mantelpiece."

"Yes," said Jill; "it is very dull. Where shall we go?"

"Let us see how Bethel is getting on."

So the three made their way to the fir plantation, but met with several interruptions on the way. Jack chased a fowl which had escaped from the poultry-yard. b.u.mps would insist on stopping to watch the peregrinations of two frogs in some long gra.s.s, and Jill had a talk with Sam, who was cutting down a young tree. As they trod softly on the brown pine-needles underfoot Jack startled his sisters by a shrill whisper.

"Look! there's a trespa.s.ser."

Jill pressed eagerly forward. A tall broad-shouldered man in clerical clothes was standing reading the board. Then instead of turning away, he went up to the pile of stones, and bending down was in the act of lifting one of them out of its place to look at it, when Jill's indignant voice arrested him.

"You're a trespa.s.ser! We shall prosecute you!"

He turned round in astonishment, and his stern, rugged features were transformed by a smile, when he saw the daintily-dressed children before him.

"Is this your property?" he asked.

Jill was like a little bantam-c.o.c.k.