"So poor a vintage as this, once opened, will hardly bear the journey," he protested. "But what are you saying about supper?"
"Why, you wouldn't leave poor old Daddy quite out of the birthday, I hope!… There's to be a supper to-night. Branny's coming."
"Am I to take this for an invitation?"
"Of course you are.… There will be speeches." "The dickens is, there won't be any trout at this rate!"
"They'll be rising before evening," said Corona confidently. "And, anyway, we can't hurry them."
From far up stream, where the grey mass of the Cathedral blocked the vale, a faint tapping sound reached them, borne on 'the cessile air.' It came from the Pageant Ground, where workmen were hammering busily at the Grand Stand. It set them talking of the Pageant, of Corona's 'May Queen' dress, of the lines (or, to be accurate, the line and a half) she had to speak. This led to her repeating some verses she had learnt at the Greycoats' School. They began—
"I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers."
"I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers."
And Corona was crazy over them, because (as she put it) "they made you feel you were smelling all England out of a bottle." Brother Copas told her of the man who had written them; and of a lovelier poem he had written To Meadows—
"Ye have been fresh and green,
Ye have been filled with flowers,
And ye the walks have been
Where maids have spent their hours.
"You have beheld how they
With wicker arks did come
To kiss and bear away
The richer cowslips home.…
"But now we see none here—"