"What are you going to shoot?" asks Alice, with interest.
"Blackbirds."
"Yourself, you mean," I say, nodding and feeling much hurt, and somewhat spiteful that I may not go with him to see the fun. "Only if you do, you must do it thoroughly; the governor hates sickness, you know; and if you did have a bad accident, how you would catch it."
"Funerals are expensive," says Alice. "On the whole, I think papa would rather he only crippled himself."
"I shall take his new gun," says Jack, pursuing his own train of thought, and paying no heed to our cackle, "it's sure not to burst."
"I shall make treacle tarts," I say, feeling my abasement very keenly, and wondering if Jack will relent. (I could make myself useful in picking the birds up.)
"What are you going to do, Alice?"
"I don't know," she says, turning a lovely thoughtful face upon me, "there is so little mischief girls can get into. I think I shall make Amberley take me into Pimpernel, and I will have my photograph taken; it has never been done yet, you know."
"Whatever do you want a likeness for?" asks Jack, opening his eyes; "can't you look at your face in the glass fifty times a day if you like? And there's nobody to give it to, for we haven't a friend in the world, and you wouldn't give one to us, surely?"
But Alice does not answer, she is wondering what the sun will make of her face, of which—
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on."
"I shall go with Alice," says Milly, promptly.
"And I," says Alan the solemn-faced, "shall look over papa's new edition of the 'Ingoldsby Legends;' I've had one or two peeps at it already."
