THE VILLAGE.
"Now, charming as I find this mossy seat, and the waving boughs, and the lights and shadows, and the beautiful view before me, and, above all, the lovely companion beside me, it strikes my unpoetical mind," said Ada, "that if we sit longer here, we may find rheumatism added to other country delights."
Flora sprang up at once from her seat. "I quite forgot that you were not a country lass like myself," she said; "as it must be almost tea-time now, perhaps we had better return home."
"Dinner at one, tea at six--how deliciously old-fashioned and rural!"
"Would you object to return by the village? I wished to inquire for poor old Mrs. Arkwright?"
"Object! I am only too much delighted to go where there is anything stirring, be it only a baker's cart!"
"I think that some day, Ada, I must introduce you to some of my favourite poor people."
"I must get up a little appropriate small-talk first," laughed her cousin. "I should feel almost as much out of my element in a cottage as one of your plough-boys would do in a ball-room. I could neither speak of amusements, nor fashions, nor pictures, nor parties; I cannot imagine what one would say after the first 'Good morning' and the usual observations on the weather."
"Oh! how diverting it would be," cried Flora, with sudden animation, "to set you to teach a class at the school!"
"I'd make it a dancing-class at once, and substitute graceful courtesies for the little short bob which always reminds me of Jack in the box; and the little boys should learn to make elegant bows, instead of pulling down their own heads by tugging at the fore-locks!"