Felicity says she just longs to be grown-up, but I don't, not a bit.

I wish I could just stay a little girl for ever--and have you and Felix and all the others for playmates right along.

I don't know how it is--but whenever I think of being grown-up I seem to feel tired." Something about Cecily's speech--or the wistful look that had crept into her sweet brown eyes--made me feel vaguely uncomfortable; I was glad that we were at the end of our journey, with Mr.Campbell's big house before us, and his dog sitting gravely at the veranda steps.
"Oh, dear," said Cecily, with a shiver, "I'd been hoping that dog wouldn't be around." "He never bites," I assured her.
"Perhaps he doesn't, but he always looks as if he was going to," rejoined Cecily.
The dog continued to look, and, as we edged gingerly past him and up the veranda steps, he turned his head and kept on looking.

What with Mr.Campbell before us and the dog behind, Cecily was trembling with nervousness; but perhaps it was as well that the dour brute was there, else I verily believe she would have turned and fled shamelessly when we heard steps in the hall.
It was Mr.Campbell's housekeeper who came to the door, however; she ushered us pleasantly into the sitting-room where Mr.Campbell was reading.

He laid down his book with a slight frown and said nothing at all in response to our timid "good afternoon." But after we had sat for a few minutes in wretched silence, wishing ourselves a thousand miles away, he said, with a chuckle, "Well, is it the school library again ?" Cecily had remarked as we were coming that what she dreaded most of all was introducing the subject; but Mr.Campbell had given her a splendid opening, and she plunged wildly in at once, rattling her explanation off nervously with trembling voice and flushed cheeks.
"No, it's our Mission Band autograph quilt, Mr.Campbell.There are to be as many squares in it as there are members in the Band.