A WITCH IN A STEEPLE-HAT
Barbara picked herself up and looked towards the door. A girl of about
eighteen stood there--an exceedingly pretty girl in a pretty frock, as the
Berkeley boys might have noticed if they had been given to noticing things
of this kind. But her regular features and her pink-and-white complexion
and her reddish-brown hair made very little impression upon them, and
they only saw that she was dressed in a grown-up manner that was rather
against her than otherwise. They decided, with the hasty judgment of a
large family, that she was much too grand to be treated as a companion;
and they prepared, quite unnecessarily, to resent any attempt of hers to
be patronising.
Nothing was further from Jill's mind than to be patronising. She had never
patronised any one in her life, not even the younger children at school,
who always expected to be patronised; and she was not likely to begin now,
with a set of schoolboys who frightened her out of her wits. For she had
never had anything to do with boys before, and she had been dreading
this moment ever since her return from abroad. She fully expected they
would play practical jokes upon her, as the schoolboys in books always
did; and she was not reassured by the uproar that met her ears when she
opened the schoolroom door. It was ridiculous that she should feel shy,
after travelling about for a whole year and meeting all sorts of people;
but as she stood rather helplessly in the doorway, she certainly found
that she was too shy to make the first advances.
The boys hesitated, and waited for one another to begin. Egbert, who
could not forget that he had just been rolling on the floor, was brushing
himself down and looking self-conscious; and it was Christopher who
remembered his manners first and came forward with his hand out.
'How do you do?' he began in his solemn, precise way. 'Won't you come and
sit down? There's an arm-chair over here, and a cushion too--somewhere.
Clear out, can't you, Peter? I believe we can even rise to a footstool,
if it isn't lost. You might look for it, Bobbin, instead of staring like
a stuck pig!' He installed her in the arm-chair and placed himself in
front of her, slightly bending forward, as he had seen his father do when
there were visitors in the drawing-room; and although the result was
rather funny when Kit did it, he managed to make Jill feel a little
more at home. 'I suppose you are Auntie Anna's daughter,' he continued
politely, 'but we don't know your name. I don't think we have ever heard
it.'
'I am Jill Urquhart,' answered the girl. She swept a glance round at the
others, who stood listening, and made a little gesture of dismay. 'What a
lot there are of you!' she exclaimed, without thinking. 'I shall never
remember all your names!'
It was an unlucky beginning, for they at once put down her remark to
affectation and counted it against her. They were so used to their numbers
themselves, that they could not understand any one else being overwhelmed
by them. Peter looked mischievous.
'It isn't so confusing as it looks,' he hastened to tell her. 'We all
answer to our names, and you will find us warm-hearted and obedient.'
Jill glanced at him innocently. 'Why,' she said with a little laugh, 'you
talk as though you were all dogs!'
Peter was left staring, and the others tittered. By her perfectly
natural remark she had turned the scale in her favour and convinced them
that there was stuff in the 'adopted kid' after all. Quite unconscious
of having said anything funny, though, Jill waited till they stopped
laughing, and then turned again to Christopher. 'Won't you introduce
me?' she asked.
Kit nodded towards Egbert, who had finished brushing himself down and was
waiting to shake hands. 'That is Egbert, who is just waking up to the
fact that you're here,' he announced. 'You will find him rather superior,
I am afraid, but we put up with him because of his age and position. Pass
along, please!'
Egbert shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly. 'It's only Kit's way,' he
explained to Jill; 'everybody gives in to Kit.'
Jill smiled. 'Kit's way' had made her forget her shyness, and she was
already interested in the delicate-looking lad, with the thin, clever
face, who had so promptly taken her under his protection.
'The next is Wilfred,' continued Christopher. 'He is responsible for the
unsavoury saucepan that has just been upset on the carpet. He thinks he
is going to be a doctor, so he is always making experiments. Of course,
he isn't going to be a doctor, really; the house can't run to it; but
we let him have his fancies. Then comes Peter, whom you have just sat
upon. Peter can't help being funny, so you must try and bear with him.
There are so few jokes in this family that perhaps we have encouraged him
more than we should.'
'Wait till she's gone, that's all!' threatened Peter in a whisper, as he
passed by after shaking hands with Jill. Christopher looked at him over
his spectacles, and went calmly on.
'I'm next on the list, and my name is Christopher, changed by the vulgar
into Kit,' he was proceeding, when Egbert made a spirited interruption.
'He is our genius,' he said, with a flourish of his hand towards the
spokesman. 'We are all very proud of him, for although only thirteen,
he has the wisdom and intelligence of one twice his age. He is the only
member of the family who can spell, and----'
'Oh, dry up!' muttered Kit, but his remonstrance was drowned in the
approving jeers of the others. The genius had had it all his own way for
about ten minutes, and it was satisfactory to see him 'scored off' in
his turn. Kit tried to resume his dignified attitude in front of Jill, but
the attempt was not particularly successful. It was always impossible in
the Berkeley family to remain dignified for long.
'Are you sure you have got them right so far, or shall I write them
down?' he asked, with so much gravity that Jill looked at him rather
suspiciously. He met her glance through his spectacles without wincing,
and the others tittered again. They were still a little doubtful about
this new cousin of theirs, who was so unlike any one who had come their
way before; and it was rather a relief to pretend to be amused.
'The last of the boys is Robin, or Bobbin if you prefer it,' continued
Kit, glibly. 'He is the youngest of us all, and the most ill-used. Indeed,
when you came in just now, you may have seen the Babe trying to rescue
him. That reminds me! I have left out our only girl. She comes between me
and Bobbin, and here you may perceive her--the Babe!'
Barbara came slowly round from her hiding-place at the back of the sofa,
and stood face to face with Jill. There was rather a wistful look on the
small countenance just then; for in all her dreams of the wonderful
cousin who was going to be her first girl-friend, Babs had never imagined
anything like this grown-up, elegant creature, who did her hair like the
ladies in the park and wore her watch dangling from her wrist. The
child's heart sank as she suddenly thought of her short gymnastic frock,
and her rumpled hair, and her dirty hands. As for Jill, she stared down at
the little person in front of her, and could not help smiling. Whenever
she had particularly dreaded being plunged into this family of boys,
she had always consoled herself by remembering that there would be one
girl among them to take her part. Now, as she looked at the rough little
tomboy before her, with her elf-like face and figure, and her bright
eager eyes, she had to own again to herself that a large family was a
difficult thing to understand.
'So you are Babs,' she began, not knowing what else to say. Then she
remembered her errand, and added hastily, 'Will you please go and see
mother? She is in the library with Uncle Everard.'
Barbara escaped and sped along the hall, full of relief at having got
away from the uncomfortable grown-up feeling that seemed to have come
into the schoolroom with Jill. She even paused outside the library door,
in her quaint, inconsequent way, to ask herself why Jill seemed so much
more grown-up than the nice old gentlemen who came to see her father,
with their pockets full of chocolates for her; and she supposed it was
because they were really old, while Jill was only grown-up, which was far
more alarming because it was so much more mysterious. But hardly had she
settled this question in her mind than a fresh one presented itself
to her. How was she to know that this other stranger, who was waiting
in there to see her, was not also going to stare at her and smile, as
Jill had done? Babs gave a troubled sigh, and opened the door with a
heavy heart.
A little old lady sat on the sofa beside her father, with her hand in
his. She was not beautiful by any means; her back was bent--like an
old witch's, Barbara thought--and she had a nose that might have been
described as hooked, and a mouth that turned down at the corners and
gave her almost a sour expression. But she had two small, keen black
eyes, that took all the ugliness out of her face; sometimes they shone
and sometimes they softened, but more often still they twinkled, as they
did now, when her little niece stole timidly into the room. The moment
the child looked up and met those eyes, she felt she was looking at her
father's sister. If she had but known it, the same eyes, too, were
gleaming back at the old lady from the middle of a bush of tangled
brown hair.
'So this is your tomboy, is it?' said Mrs. Crofton, bluntly. 'Come here,
child, and don't stand shivering there. Do you think I am going to do
anything to you?'
Barbara's unusual timidity vanished at the sound of that voice. It was
sharp and abrupt and determined, but it rang true, and there was nothing
in it to frighten anybody.
'I'm not afraid,' she said, returning the old lady's gaze frankly; 'I am
hardly ever afraid of people. Am I, father?'
Mr. Berkeley chuckled in an amused manner. He had been very curious
to see this meeting between his wild little daughter and the sister
who had managed his domestic affairs for him since the death of his wife.
By nature a student, he lived most of his life in his library and in
himself, and only woke up now and then to the fact that he had six
growing children, who probably needed something besides the affection it
was so easy to give them. In these waking moments he would write off to
his sister, Mrs. Crofton of Crofts, for whose judgment he had quite a
pathetic regard, and would carry out to the letter every suggestion she
chose to send him. Only once had he ignored her advice, and that was
when she had proposed a governess for Barbara; for he had passed over
this idea in silence, and the child had continued to run in and out
of his library, reading what books she pleased, and ordering her own
upbringing in a way that seemed to him eminently satisfactory. For
that matter, his library was open to any of his children at any time that
they chose to invade it; and they interrupted him fearlessly as often
as they pleased, without provoking anything worse than a good-humoured
growl from him, that was never to be taken seriously for a moment.
Probably this was why the tie between them and their father had come
to be a friendly as well as an affectionate one.
Just lately, something had happened to change the haphazard course of
affairs in the old London house. That autumn, Mr. Berkeley had brought
out a philosophical work on which he had been engaged for years, and
although it had only had a limited success in England, it had made a
great sensation in America. The result was an invitation to conduct a
lecturing tour in the States, which would take him abroad for something
like half a year. Mr. Berkeley had the vaguest notions as to the amount of
protection his children needed, but he had a sort of idea that children
left in charge of a housekeeper would be considered neglected, and he
did not want his children to feel neglected. As usual, he referred
his dilemma to Mrs. Crofton, who replied promptly from the Riviera,
saying she was on her way home to Crofts, and would stop a week in
town to settle his affairs for him. This he forgot to mention to the
children until the day she was to arrive, and then, in his innocence,
considered their dismay as one of the peculiarities of youth.
'So you are not afraid of me, eh? Then why won't you give me a kiss, I
should like to know?' demanded Auntie Anna, as Barbara held out her hand
in a boyish fashion.
The child looked surprised, and offered an unwilling cheek. 'We don't
often kiss in our family,' she explained; 'only when the boys go back to
school, or when somebody has banged somebody else on the head, or when
it's a birthday and presents. But that isn't often, you see.'
Mrs. Crofton of Crofts smiled, and her brother pulled his daughter down
between them on the sofa.
'You must forgive her appearance,' he said apologetically. 'We haven't
anybody to teach us to be ladylike, have we, Babs?'
The old lady put her finger under Barbara's chin, and turned the small
face round, and looked into it keenly. 'What's the matter with her
appearance?' she inquired quickly. 'Don't be a goose, Everard! Now,
child, tell me! Do you want to go on being a boy for ever, reading all
sorts of books you have no business to read, and banging people on the
head when they offend you, and looking alarming old ladies in the face
without flinching; or do you want to be combed and brushed and smoothed
into a young lady, and taught to rave about art and music and poetry, and
told to look down when you are spoken to, and never to answer back if
the truth is unpleasant? Hey? Which is it to be?'
Barbara was looking puzzled. 'I don't think I know what you mean,' she
said. 'Do you mean that I _must_ be either me or--or Jill?'
'Well, supposing we put it that way,' replied Mrs. Crofton, smiling again.
'Which do you choose to be?'
Barbara did not stop to think about it. 'I don't want to be either, thank
you,' she said decidedly. 'I would _much_ rather be like you or father.'
Mr. Berkeley chuckled once more, and his sister struck her cane on the
ground and laughed heartily. 'A pretty mess you've made of your daughter's
education, I must say,' she remarked. Then she turned again to Babs.
'Well, child, I see you are going to be like your father in any case; and
as for me--well, we'll see if we can't prevent such a terrible result as
that. And now, I want you to pretend that I am a fairy godmother. Do
you think you can?'
Barbara nodded, and her small black eyes glistened. It was not difficult
to do that. Already the bonnet with the pink feathers had turned into
a steeple-hat, and the black silk mantle into a scarlet cloak, and the
blue-knobbed cane into a broomstick. The little impish face was aglow
with delight as the old lady went on:
'Now, I've just come down the chimney with a bang, and I am going to
give my goddaughter the wish that she wishes most in all the world. But
mind--if I have a suspicion that what she asks for is not what she really
wants--bang! up the chimney I go again!'
Barbara took a flying leap into the middle of the room, and spun round
with her favourite movement on the tips of her toes. Her heart was
thumping wildly with excitement at finding herself in the middle of a real
fairy story; and when she at last stood still again, she was almost too
breathless to speak.
[Illustration: 'May I--may I have all that?']
'Please,' she said, clasping her hands tightly together, 'I want to go to
school, a real girls' school, where there are crowds of girls, and crowds
of lessons, and crowds of story-books with nice endings, and crowds of
awfully jolly games that don't pull your hair about and don't give you
bruises. May I--may I have all that?'
Auntie Anna once more struck her cane upon the ground. 'That shows how
much you know about your own daughter, Everard!' she said, which was a
remark that Barbara never understood. 'You may have all that, little
goddaughter, every bit of it!' she announced to the expectant child;
'and what is more, you shall have it in a week's time. Hey-day! Where are
you off to in such a hurry, if you please, and why am I allowed a kiss
all at once, eh? It isn't a birthday, is it?'
For Barbara had rushed impetuously to the door, and then scampered back
to kiss the face with the hooked nose that peered out from beneath the
steeple-hat. 'Of course I kissed you,' she cried, 'because--because you're
such a brick, you see!' She paused half-way in her second journey to the
door, and looked back doubtfully at the old lady on the sofa. 'May I ask
you something else?' she said.
'Anything you please,' answered Auntie Anna. 'That's what I'm here for;
eh, Everard?'
'Then--then--are you going to do anything for the boys too?' stammered
Barbara. 'I--I don't think it's quite fair to keep all the niceness to
myself, you see!'
'That depends on what the boys want,' replied the old lady, gravely. 'Do
you think you can give me any idea?'
Barbara puckered up her eyebrows, and counted off the names on her
fingers. 'First there's Egbert,' she began; 'he wants to go to Oxford
without having to get a scholarship first. Then there's Wilfred; he wants
to be a doctor, but Kit says there isn't money enough and he's got to get
over it. Do you think you'll be able to make Will into a doctor? And Peter
wants lots of shooting; he says he doesn't mind about anything else,
only Kit says he isn't old enough, and you won't trust him with a gun. Kit
hasn't seen you yet, you see. Then there's Kit----'
'That's enough for the present!' cried Mrs. Crofton, who was leaning back,
convulsed with laughter, among the sofa cushions. Mr. Berkeley again drew
his daughter towards him.
'You are revealing all the secrets of the prison-house, little girl,' he
remarked.
Barbara looked from one to the other. 'Auntie Anna did ask me,' she said
reproachfully.
'To be sure I did,' answered the old lady, recovering herself with an
effort, 'and I am delighted to hear some of the things I am expected to
do. But you must allow that even a fairy godmother has a hard time of
it occasionally, and it is a little difficult to provide for all her
godchildren at once, you know. However, you shall hear what is going
to happen in a week's time, on the very day that this naughty father of
yours takes himself off to America; and if you approve of it, we can
see about the other things later on. Is that a bargain, eh?'
'Oh! What else is going to happen in a week's time?' asked Barbara,
eagerly. By this time she was prepared for any dream to come true. Her
faith in the old lady who was playing at fairy stories was complete.
Mr. Berkeley answered her. 'Auntie Anna is going to carry you all off to
Crofts for the whole six months that I am away,' he told her; 'and you are
going to Jill's school at Wootton Beeches, which is only ten miles off.
So Kit and Robin will be able to come over and see you sometimes, when
the others have gone away, for they are going to have a tutor and stay
at Crofts with Auntie Anna and Jill. Isn't that a fine idea?'
Barbara was speechless with rapture. The expression on her face made them
laugh once more. Then she gave a kind of war-whoop that might have been
heard in the schoolroom, and bounded again towards the door. 'I simply
can't bear it another minute,' she gasped. 'I _must_ go and tell the boys.'
'Bear it just one more minute, and hear what else I have to say,' begged
Auntie Anna, raising herself with the help of her stick, and walking
slowly after her excited little niece. 'Can you ride bicycles, all of you?'
The child shook her head. 'Only Egbert,' she said; 'and that is because
he stayed with a chap, last holidays, who lent him one. Bicycles are too
jolly expensive for this family, you know,' she added quaintly.
Auntie Anna stood still and pointed the blue-knobbed cane impressively at
the child, who stood waiting. 'What do you say to a bicycle apiece all
round,' she began, 'and----'
But Barbara did not wait to say anything. Back along the hall she
scampered with all her might, and flung herself panting into the
schoolroom. She burst out at once with a rapturous medley of news.
'Boys, boys!' she shouted at the top of her voice; 'the dragon isn't
a dragon, she's like a fairy godmother out of a story-book! And she's
going to send me to the adopted kid's school, and everybody is going to
live at Crofts till father comes back, and there's going to be bicycles
_all round_--no waiting 'cause you're the youngest, Bobbin!--and----'
Suddenly she paused and stammered, and paused again. Finally, she stood
silent and uncomfortable, with the excitement and the thrill all gone
out of her. She had quite forgotten Jill; and Jill, enthroned in the one
arm-chair, with the one cushion at her back and the one footstool at her
feet, was looking as though she was not there to be forgotten.
'I've just been telling the boys all about it,' she remarked.
Barbara stared. It put the finishing touch to her distrust of Jill, that
she should have told anything to the boys--_her_ boys--before she had time
to tell them herself.
'I--I think it's a shame!' she exclaimed hotly, and she bit her lip to
keep from crying.
'Hullo, Babe! What's up?' asked Peter, in surprise.
Jill slipped out of the arm-chair, and laid her hand on the child's
shoulder. 'I'm so sorry, Babs,' she began softly; 'I really didn't
know----'
Barbara looked up at her doubtfully. The tone was kind, but then, why
did she go on smiling in that irritating way? 'You don't understand,'
she said, and twisted herself free from Jill's grasp, and did not speak
again until she was gone.
The boys took no notice of her; they always left the Babe alone when
she was in one of her odd moods. But Jill, who had really meant to be
kind, went away feeling puzzled. She had got over her first shyness of
the boys in a very few minutes, for they were evidently trying to be
friendly in their blunt, boyish fashion; but Barbara baffled her. There
was something antagonistic in the child's manner; and Jill, who had always
been accustomed to meeting with affection wherever she went, did not
quite know what to make of her. Of course it was ridiculous to worry
herself about a tomboy of eleven who chose to be sulky; but it was the
first time any one had refused to make friends with her, and Jill was a
little hurt about it.
'You're spoiled, my dear,' remarked her mother, as they drove away from
the Berkeleys' house; 'and it is I who have spoiled you. I'm a silly old
woman, but I never could bear to deny you all the sympathy you asked. I
was afraid, you see, that you might think the world was not a nice place
to be in.'
'I'm glad you spoiled me, and I think the world _is_ a nice place to be
in,' answered Jill, laughing. 'But what has that to do with Barbara's not
liking me?'
'Well, you can't expect every one to like you,' said the old lady, in her
brusque way. 'Babs will like you well enough when she finds that she is
still the Babe of the family, in spite of your being there.'
'But--but I don't like to feel that there is anybody anywhere who doesn't
like me,' complained Jill, with a little pout.
'No more does the Babe, I expect,' said Mrs. Crofton, smiling. 'However,
do your best to understand the poor little soul; she has not had much
spoiling, and I should like you two to be friends.'
'Oh!' cried Jill, laughing again as she recalled the funny little figure
that had come bounding into the schoolroom with such a yell and a clatter.
'But she really is rather impossible, mother dear!'
'Quite,' responded the old lady, drily; 'but she has amazing
possibilities, and I thought you might perhaps like to find them.
Well, what about the others?'
'Oh, I like them,' said Jill; 'though I wish they would not all talk at
once; it's so confusing. And I'm a little afraid of them, too. You never
know why they are laughing at you; and if you take them seriously, they
laugh more than ever. Whatever you do, they laugh.'
'Large families are always like that,' chuckled Mrs. Crofton.
'Large families are rather exhausting then, aren't they?' said Jill.
'The boys are rather rough too, and they seem so proud of having scars
on their hands, and of being able to see a pig killed without feeling
bad--at least, Peter was. Kit is different from the others: I like Kit.
And they _are_ frank! They were not ashamed of calling me the "adopted
kid" to my face; and they even owned to having nicknamed you "the dragon"!'
The old lady laughed. 'So I am, as far as they know!' she replied. Then
she patted the girl caressingly on the hand. 'My dear, it does us all good
to be with people who are frank, even if they are a little rough with it.
And I want you to help me to put as much love and gentleness as we can
into the Berkeleys' lives, for it strikes me that spoiling is what this
large family wants.'
'Then it's what this large family will certainly get, if _you_ have
anything to do with it,' answered Jill, softly.
In the schoolroom they had just left, the criticisms were brief and to
the point.
'She'll do,' said Peter, condescendingly, 'when she's got over that silly
way of gaping at us, as though we were beasts at the Zoo.'
'She's stunning to look at, and her clothes are just ripping,' said
Egbert, the eldest; 'but, of course, you kids couldn't be expected to
notice that.'
'Oh, you think you're everybody, just because you stayed with a chap last
holidays who had a grown-up sister who called you _Mr._ Berkeley,' cried
Wilfred.
Robin said he liked her soft way of speaking, and she reminded him of
Nurse, which set them all laughing, as they recalled that homely-looking
person in cap and spectacles. Christopher put in his opinion, when they
had all had their say.
'She wants knowing,' he said briefly. 'There's too many of us in a lump to
let her give herself away. When she takes us separately, or in pairs, we
shall get on as right as rain. And she really does know something about
stamps.'
But the Babe, who sat away in a corner by herself, said nothing. She
had forgotten Jill for the moment, forgotten her own fit of jealousy and
her shyness of the interloper, and she did not even hear what the others
were talking about. She was going to school at last, and nothing else
was of any consequence. Indeed, all through the week of whirl and
preparation that followed, Barbara went about in a kind of dream. She
could hardly yet believe in her good luck. A few short days ago things
had seemed likely to go on for ever in the same uneventful way, except
that they were going to be made dreary for a time by the absence of the
father she adored; and now, just through the coming of an old lady, whom
she had been prepared to hate, this amazing change in her future was
going to take place. To an imaginative little person like Barbara, it
was useless to pretend that there was nothing out of the ordinary in
this. She had lived for years in a fairy world of her own, where Kit
was a fairy prince and her father a nice old magician, and where numbers
of charming princesses, the schoolgirls of her imagination, were ready
to sympathise with her whenever the boys had been teasing her more than
usual. It was surely to this kingdom of her fancy that a fairy godmother,
who had once been a dragon, properly belonged; and all through that week,
Barbara wandered in her imaginary kingdom with this new inhabitant of it,
pointing out all its beauties to her, and even assuring her that the
magician would cure her rheumatism if she were to ask him nicely. 'Only,
you must not make her back _quite_ straight,' she whispered privately to
the magician, 'because she wouldn't be a proper fairy godmother if her
back were straight!' She also added strict injunctions to the keeper of
her gates, that a certain grown-up cousin, who might be known by her
tiresome way of smiling at people, was not to be admitted under any
circumstances into her fairy kingdom. 'It would never do,' thought
Barbara, seriously, 'to have any one in my kingdom who wanted to laugh at
me.'
Meanwhile, the busy preparations went on around her. It was not an easy
thing to move a family of six from the home in which they had passed the
whole of their lives, especially when their aunt, in the large manner
which characterised everything she did, insisted on allowing them to pack
whatever they wished.
'We are only young once,' she represented to a distracted housekeeper,
'and possessions are very precious when we are young. Let them bring
everything that will help to make the place seem like home to them; there
is plenty of room at Crofts. Get tired of the things? Of course they will!
We can't expect them to be wiser than the grown-ups, can we?'
So Wilfred packed explosive liquids in bottles, and Peter packed cricket
stumps and hockey clubs, and Christopher found room among Egbert's
collars and ties to stow away microscope-slides and setting-boards and
birds' eggs, and Robin brought innumerable contributions in the shape
of torn picture-books and old toys that the others had discarded long
ago. None of them ever forgot that last week in their London home; for
besides the exquisite joys of packing up, there were also delightful
expeditions up to town with Auntie Anna, ostensibly to buy clothes, but in
reality to afford amusement to an old lady who had never enjoyed her
life so much before; and whether they went alone with her, or in such
numbers that the brougham was as full as it could be, the afternoon
always ended with a magnificent tea without limitations--'Even ices to
finish up with, and no one saying nothink about your makin' yourself ill
'cause you mixed things!' as Robin proclaimed on his return home from one
of these expeditions.
Then there was the buying of the six bicycles; and even Barbara forgot
for the moment all about school and everything else for the sake of her
new two-wheeled possession, soon to be invested in her mind with magic
properties and converted into a fairy messenger in her fairy kingdom.
She was less patient over the purchase of her school outfit, which kept
her standing at the dressmaker's for whole half-hours together, when
she might have been trying her bicycle round the square; and she wondered
why it was necessary to have such quantities of clothes, just because
she was going to live at school instead of at home. Surely, if her
present wardrobe was good enough to pass the critical examination of
five brothers, it need not be improved to meet the friendly gaze of a
parcel of girls! However, Auntie Anna insisted on more clothes; and
Auntie Anna was a witch, so she ought to know. And since she did not take
the dressmaker's part, but even allowed Barbara to have her own way as
to the shortness of her skirts, with an added inch or so to satisfy the
scruples of the dressmaker, it was impossible to grumble very much at the
precious time that was being wasted.
So the week drew swiftly to a close, and the day of departure came at last.