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.