"Oh, there's nothing left to do but to fasten up the flowers. Old George says it won't take an hour," I replied.
"Then if I come down at three o'clock the show will be ready?"
"Quite ready," I said. "And mamma will come too?"
"Of course mamma's coming too; unless, indeed, you mean to charge so high a price for the exhibition," said my father comically, "that I cannot afford it. But even then," he added, "mamma shall see it; I'll give it up for her."
I was off from the luncheon-table as soon as possible, but found nurse lying in wait to capture me and enforce upon my mind the first duty of returning by four o'clock, to be dressed properly before the arrival of our visitors, whose impression of me, she conceived, would be most unfavourable were they to find me in what she was pleased to call "this trumpery," referring to a little sailor's suit of white and blue in which I was very generally attired, and which nurse chose to disapprove. She wound up her admonition by a sort of lament over my light-mindedness as to my best clothes; a spirit which, she remarked, was apt to cling to people to their graves—sometimes afterwards; which I scarcely thought possible.
Frisk and I darted down the Zig-zag at our usual pace, so soon as I was released from nurse's kind offices, and joined old George, who was on the look-out for us.
Very pleased we were with the result of our exertions when the really pretty triumphal arch was completed; the letters of the word Welcome in conspicuously gay flowers forming a pretty contrast to the leafy background, and eliciting what we felt to be a well-merited admiration from my parents and a select committee of servants, who came severally to inspect our handiwork in the course of the afternoon.
"It's fit for Her Majesty," said my father in his playful way, "and far too fine for a little stranger boy! In fact, it seems scarcely proper that a humble individual like myself should pass under it!"
"You're not a humble individual, papa!" I exclaimed vehemently.
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" sighed my father, "that it should come to such a pass as this; my only son tells me I am wanting in humility—not a humble person!"