"You'd better come and stay with us," the latter blurted out immediately. "We're going to our cottage in Wales."
"Oh, but perhaps your mother won't want me."
"Anybody would want you. The thing is who's going to be lucky enough to get you?"
Lesbia knew enough of life to discount most of Regina's ecstatic remarks, and to understand that her friend's anxiety for her company did not by any means involve an invitation from Mrs. Webster, who probably had other plans.
"If she's very good-natured she may possibly ask me for a week," ruminated Lesbia. "I only wish she would. I've never been in Wales."
Regina apparently knew how to wheedle her mother, for next day she brought a note to school.
"Will you give this to Mrs. Patterson?" she said; "we want you to come to Dolmadoc with us, for all the holidays."
All of them? Lesbia was staggered with the magnificence of the invitation. Certainly Regina never did things by halves. She presented the letter with much anxiety. Evidently it solved a difficulty, for Mrs. Patterson at once gave permission for the visit. It was such an utterly unexpected pleasure that Lesbia could hardly believe it was really true until she saw her box brought down from the attic to be packed.
The Websters wasted no time, and started for Wales directly the holidays commenced. They were the fortunate owners of a country cottage at Dolmadoc, a little village amongst the mountains. Mr. Webster had bought it some years ago, after Regina and Derrick had caught scarlet fever in seaside lodgings, and had registered a vow he would never again expose young children to the risk of taking infection at crowded pleasure resorts. Here they spent Easter and August vacations, and sometimes even Christmas as well. It was a second home, and, though on a far simpler scale than their house in Kingfield, it was in many ways much dearer to them. The house was built high up on a hill-side, and had a most magnificent view over miles of valley, with a river winding at the bottom and great mountain peaks rising in the distance. There was a terraced garden, and an enclosed patch of field called by courtesy a tennis-lawn. At the back was a common with gorse bushes and bracken. On fine days the family lived almost entirely out of doors. They took their meals in a veranda, and when they were not out walking, they sat in deck-chairs in the garden, reading or sewing. It was a delightfully free and unconventional life, almost like camping or caravanning. The younger children ran about without shoes and stockings, nobody wore hats, and gloves were not necessary even on Sundays.
To Lesbia her new surroundings were an absolute Paradise. She had, of course, brought her cherished painting materials, and she set to work with wild enthusiasm to try her hand at sketching from nature. In so beautiful a place subjects were not difficult to choose. There were whitewashed cottages with moss-covered roofs, picturesque barns and haystacks, patches of gorse against a blazing blue sky, marshy meadows in a red sunset, or mountain tops tipped with mist. Her efforts might not have appeared very great to an Academy critic, but the Websters thought them wonderful. They had no facility for drawing, so their guest's talent impressed them considerably. Regina would take a book and sit by quite happily while Lesbia dabbed on her effects, and even consented to act model, a back-breaking occupation that is generally judged a trying test of friendship. Lesbia would have sketched all day long if she had been allowed, but the Websters dragged her away from her painting and took her for walks. There was a stream, about half a mile from the cottage, where Regina and Derrick were fond of fishing and occasionally caught small trout. The younger members of the family loved to paddle here, and climbed about on the rocks like goats, their bare feet giving them a grip on the slippery moss. Lesbia, who was not so accustomed to country life as they were, attempted to follow them, and slid with a splash into the water, not a dangerous matter, for it was very shallow, but destructive to her clean white skirt. She used more caution after this experience, and made the discovery that tennis-shoes afforded a much firmer foothold than ordinary leather.