and their request at Mr. Downing's house that evening, they were not at all encouraged by their reception.
Mr. Downing, a man of moods, had just come off second best in an encounter with Mrs. Milligan, whom he had accidentally met on his way home to dinner, and the cottage, at the moment the girls appeared, was just about the last subject that the badgered man cared to discuss. Before Jean had fairly stated her errand, enraged Mr. Downing roared "NO!" so emphatically, that his four alarmed visitors backed hurriedly off the Downing porch and fled as one girl. Mabel, to be sure, measured her length in the canna bed near the gate, but she scrambled up, snorting with fright and indignation, and none of them paused again in their flight until Jean's door, which seemed safest, had closed behind them.
