When he spread more than pint of water over one of those dresses,
he would give a pleasant little laugh, and say:
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure;" and offer them his handkerchief to wipe it
off with.
"Oh, it's of no consequence," the poor girls would murmur in reply, and
covertly draw rugs and coats over themselves, and try and protect
themselves with their lace parasols.
At lunch they had a very bad time of it. People wanted them to sit on
the grass, and the grass was dusty; and the tree-trunks, against which
they were invited to lean, did not appear to have been brushed for weeks;
so they spread their handkerchiefs on the ground and sat on those, bolt
upright. Somebody, in walking about with a plate of beef-steak pie,
tripped up over a root, and sent the pie flying. None of it went over
them, fortunately, but the accident suggested a fresh danger to them, and
agitated them; and, whenever anybody moved about, after that, with
anything in his hand that could fall and make a mess, they watched that
person with growing anxiety until he sat down again.
"Now then, you girls," said our friend Bow to them, cheerily, after it
was all over, "come along, you've got to wash up!"
They didn't understand him at first. When they grasped the idea, they
said they feared they did not know how to wash up.
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