We shouldn't have had much fun if the Snark had stayed!
Don't bring her back, for goodness' sake, Jo!"

"I wasn't going to! Besides which, she's probably half-way down town at
present, having tea in a cafe. She generally does on Fridays."

"She won't get a better tea than we're having!"

"I'll undertake she won't! This meringue is absolutely topping! I wonder
if there's another left."

"No, they're gone, every one of them!"

"Hard luck!"

Though the hour might be early, the girls' appetites were quite equal to
the task of finishing the various delicacies in the way of sweet stuff
which they had brought with them. Cakes disappeared like snow in summer,
and chocolate boxes, passed round impartially, soon returned empty to
their owners. When everything seemed almost finished, Bess produced
another hamper, which she had carried up from the cloak-room, and stowed
away under her desk. She handed it rather shyly to Beatrice, who
happened to be her nearest neighbor.

"Mother sent these, and wants you all to share them," she remarked.

Beatrice, Francie, and Linda opened the hamper all three together, then
with a delighted "O-Oh!" of satisfaction drew out six beautiful bunches
of purple grapes. Ingred, finishing her cup of tea, choked and coughed.
She knew those grapes well. They grew in the vinery at Rotherwood, and
had been the pride of her father and of the head-gardener. She had not
tasted one of them for five years, for during the war they had always
been given to the patients in the Red Cross Hospital, but she could not
forget their delicious flavor. Why had her father let the vinery with
the house? The grapes ought to be hers to give away--not this girl's.
Nobody else in the room cared in the least where the fruit came from, so
long as it was there. Appreciative eyes looked on in glad anticipation
while Beatrice and Francie divided the bunches with as much mathematical
accuracy as they could muster at the moment. A portion was laid upon
each desk, and the girls fell to.

"Delicious!"

"Never tasted better in my life!"

"Absolutely topping!"

"Makes one want to go and live in a vineyard!"

"They're exactly ripe!"

"Ingred, you're not eating yours!"

"I don't want them, thanks," said Ingred hurriedly. "I don't indeed.
I've had enough. Pass them on to somebody else, please!"

"Well, if you really don't want them, they won't go a-begging, I dare
say!"

Ingred felt as if the grapes would choke her. She c