"And this shall be my wedding present," said she.
"Why, I brought you six waggon-loads!—beauties—all chosen by my
Chancellor."
"But he didn't make or choose this one," said Sophia, "and I like this one best." They sat silent for a moment. "Dear me," she sighed, "what a lot we have to learn of each other's ways!"
"Hullo!" Ferdinand was staring down the glade. "What's that line at the end there, across the sky?"
Sophia turned. "I think that's the sea—yes, there is a ship upon it."
"But why have they hung a blue cloth in front of it?"
"I expect that's in our honour too."
They took hands and trotted to the end of the orchard; and there, beyond the hedge, ran a canal, and beyond the canal a wide flat country stretched away to the sea,—a land dotted with windmills and cattle and red-and-white houses with weathercocks,—a land, too, criss-crossed with canals, whereon dozens of boats, and even some large ships, threaded their way like dancers in and out of the groups of cattle, or sailed past a house so closely as almost to poke a bowsprit through the front door. The weather-cocks spun and glittered, the windmills waved their arms, the boats bowed and curtseyed to the children. Never was such a salutation. Even the blue cloth in the distance twinkled, and Ferdinand saw at a glance that it was embroidered with silver.
But the finest flash of all came from a barge moored in the canal just below them, where a middle-aged woman sat scouring a copper pan.
"Good-day!" cried Ferdinand across the hedge. "Why are you doing that?"