"I do like them," sighed Stephanie plaintively. "I love aristocratic people and nice houses and things. Why shouldn't I? You needn't grin, Addie Knighton; you'd know them yourself if you could. When I come out I'd like to be presented at Court, and go to a ball where the people are all dukes and duchesses and earls and countesses. It would be worth while dancing with a duke, especially if he wore the Order of the Garter!"
"Until that glorious day comes you'll have to dance with poor little me for a partner," giggled Merle.
"Aren't you all rested? We shall get no blackberries if we don't hurry on," called Miss Moseley from the other end of the rock.
Everybody scrambled up immediately and set out again over the bracken-covered hill-side. Another half-mile and they had reached the bourne of their expedition. The narrow track through the gorse and fern widened suddenly into a lane, a lane with very high, unmortared walls, over which grew a variety of bramble with a particularly luscious fruit. Every connoisseur of blackberries knows what a difference there is between the little hard seedy ones that commonly flourish in the hedges and the big juicy ones with the larger leaves. Nature had been prodigal here, and a bounteous harvest hung within easy reach.
"They are as big as mulberries—and oh, such heaps and heaps!" exclaimed Addie ecstatically. "No, Merle, you wretch, this is my branch! Don't poach, you wretch! Go farther on, can't you!"
"I wish we could send the jam to the hospital when it's made," sighed Merle.
The party spread itself out; some of the girls climbed to the top of the wall, so that they could reach what grew on the sunnier side, and a few skirted round over a gate into a field, where a ruined cottage was also covered with brambles. They worked down the lane by slow degrees, picking hard as they went. At the end a sudden rushing roar struck upon the ear, and without even waiting for a signal from Miss Moseley the girls with one accord hopped over a fence, and ran up a slight incline. The voice of the waterfall was calling, and the impulse to obey was irresistible. At the top of the slope they stopped, for they had reached a natural platform that overlooked the gorge. The scene rivalled one of the beauty-spots of Switzerland. The Porth Powys stream, flowing between precipitous rocks, fell two hundred feet in a series of four splendid cascades. The rugged crags on either side were thickly covered with a forest of fir and larch, and here and there a taller stone-pine reared its darker head above the silvery green. Dashing, roaring, leaping, shouting, the water poured down in a never-ceasing volume: the white spray rose up in clouds, wetting the girls' faces; the sound was like an endless chorus of hallelujahs.
"Porth Powys is in fine form to-day. There must have been rain up in the mountains last night," remarked Ulyth. "What do you think of it, Rona?"
"It's a champion! I'm going to climb down there and get at the edge."
"No, you won't!" said Miss Moseley sharply. "Nobody is to go a single step nearer. You must all come back into the lane now, and get on with blackberry-picking. Your baskets are only half full yet."