When Mrs Forrest had drunk her tea, and set forth at a leisurely pace for the schoolroom, provided with work-basket and book, the two girls were alone together. There was a pause of embarrassment, which Delia was the first to break.
“I was coming over,” she said, “to ask if you would care to go and get water-lilies down at the river this evening. You said you would like some rushes too.”
Her voice sounded kind, almost as it used to long ago, although there was a sort of shyness in her manner. Anna was greatly relieved. Surely Delia would not have begun like this if she intended to reprove her.
“Mrs Forrest said you might go, if your head was better,” continued Delia.
Anna replied eagerly that her headache was nearly gone, a walk would do it good, she should like it immensely; and a few minutes later the girls started on their expedition. It was one which had been planned in the first days of their acquaintance, when Anna had thought no pleasure could compare to a ramble in the country with Delia. Fresh from the rattle and noise of London, its stony pavements, and the stiff brilliancy of the flowers in the parks, it had been a sort of rapture to her to wander freely over the fields and through the woods. Aunt Sarah’s garden was beautiful, but this was better still. All the flowers found here might be gathered, and Delia knew exactly where they all grew in their different seasons, and the best way of getting to them. Anna had begun, under her guidance, to make a collection of wild-flowers, but though started with great energy, it had not gone far. It had ceased, together with the walks, shortly after her acquaintance with the Palmers had filled her mind with other things. Yet those rambles with Delia had never been forgotten. Anna thought of them often, and knew in her heart that she had never been so really happy since. This evening, as she walked along swinging her basket, she felt as though the old days had come back, and the old Delia too. It could not be so, really. If she knew—but she did not know. Meanwhile the sky was blue, Delia was kind, the meadows were gay and pleasant, she would forget everything disagreeable, and enjoy herself.
Their way lay for a short distance along the high-road, then over a stile, and down through the rich flat water-meadows which spread out on each side of the river. The Dorn was neither a rapid nor a majestic stream, but took its leisurely course between its sloping banks, with a contented ripple, disturbing no one. This course was a very winding one, making all kinds of little creeks, and shallows, and islands on its way, and these were full of delightful plants for any one who cared to gather them. Tall families of bulrushes and reeds swaying to the wind whistling through them; water-lilies, holding up their flat, green hands to make a table for their white blossoms; forests of willow-herb on the banks, wild peppermint and comfrey, and the blue eyes of forget-me-nots peeping out here and there with modest confidence.
“There’s an old punt fastened just about here,” said Delia, as they reached the river, “so we can get right out amongst the lilies, and then we can reach the rushes too.”
Delia was always the leader on such occasions, and Anna was used to following her with perfect confidence, but when they came to the old punt, a little higher up, she eyed it with some misgivings. It looked very insecure, and shaky, and rotten.
“Oh, Delia,” she cried, as her companion jumped lightly on to it and waited for her to follow, “it’s leaking—I can see the water through it. Do you think it will bear us both?”
Delia laughed as Anna crept cautiously down the bank. It reminded her of the time when she had had to encourage and help her to climb gates and scramble through hedges.