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i'HE STRAND MAGAZINE « 
“the hideous apparition whose fearful convulsions seemingly could only end in some 
APPALLING EXPLOSION TOUCHED THEM WITH NOISY TERROR, AND IN UNISON THEY SCREAMED.” 
III. 
And now the throng of pretty things 
launched themselves upon the delicious 
excitement of preparing tea. At the foot of 
the cliff on the Merringlee side of Fair Maid’s 
Cove there is a huge round rock — Football 
Rock, as they call it — and on the shady side 
0f this, like a cluster of many-coloured butter- 
flies, this way and that they fluttered in the 
delightful preparations. 
“ You may do what you like, you two/ 7 said 
Miss Milly, addressing the boys. “ Do what 
you like till tea is ready. We’ll call you.” 
With this she turns her back to fiddle with 
Bobo, or spread jam, or something ; and the 
couple, clearly dismissed, drew gloomily away. 
1 tell you that for prettiness of picture this 
side of the rock where the missies busied and 
chattered might have been a corner of fairy- 
land. It was a girls’ paradise where you 
might sit cross-legged, one-legged (sitting on 
one with the other most indelicately stretched), 
or any way you pleased, with no one to make a 
word of reproof ; where you might crawl all 
over the tablecloth, tossing your hair where 
it trickled over your eyes and into the dish you 
sought to place ; where you might nip up a 
chocolate or lick your thumb when unfortu- 
nately it had crushed into a squashy cake, 
and no one to say “ Oh, fie ! ” Miss Milly, 
cross-legged, napkin on lap, knees sticking 
east and west, splashed cream and jam on to 
the slices she hacked from a fine new r loaf ; 
Miss Gertie, lying flat, halved buns and 
jammed them nobly with a spoon ; Miss 
Yvonne piled the greengages ; Miss Daffy 
slashed the cake ; Miss Eflie alternately placed 
an eclair and licked her pretty thumbs ; Miss j 
— well, when the kettle over the spirit-lamp 
was beginning to hiss, anybody’s mouth would 
have watered at that exquisite array of creams 
and jams and cakes, of fruits and chocolates 
and pastries, that jostled one another all 
round the splendid pinnacle of pink icing that 
had “ Milly ” in silver letters on its crown, 
and that towered bravely on the centre of the 
cloth. 
The thing had reached this point ; the 
packet of missies were drawing back with little I , 
“ Ah’s ” of pleasure and little sniffs of anticF ‘ 
pat ions when suddenly — 
“Oh, dear! What ever’s that? ” Miss Milly 
inquired. 
Poor things ! Their pretty lips, that had so 
gaily chattered, noiv slightly parted in the j 
faint tremble of apprehension ; their sparkling 
eyes that had so brightly danced, now fixed in 
the clouded stare of doubt ; their bangles that ! 
had so musically jingled, now faintly trembled 
here and there where a pretty hand shook. 
