It informed her, under the heading of Answers to Correspondents by "Smart Set," of an excellent home for Anglo-Indian children (gravel soil), of a new way to clean Brussels lace, of the number of gowns required in these days for a week-end visit, of a scale of tips for gamekeepers. It directed her to a manicure, and instructed her how to build a pergola for an Italian garden, supposing that she lived in Suffolk and could spare half an acre facing east. She drank in all this information with an impartial appetite.
"What a favourite it is still, the mushroom 'at!" she spelled out slowly. "W'y the other day, at Messrs. Freebody and Williams's in Regent Street, there it confronted me again in a whole bevy of new model shapes. The medium, in brown Ottoman silk, fronted with wings of fine brown or blue lustre, is quite ridiculously cheap at 27s. 6d. And a large hat in black satin, swathed with black chiffon in which lurks just a touch of real ermine, asks you no more than 35s. 9d. Truly age cannot wither nor custom stale the infinite variety of the mushroom.'"
"What nonsense are you reading?" the boy demanded.
"Nonsense?" echoed Tilda. "What's nonsense? It's—it's 'eavingly—and anyway it ain't no farther off than your Island."
They resumed their way, slightly huffed one with another; passed a group of willows; and came to a halt, surprised and irresolute.
In the centre of a small sunny clearing they beheld a tent, with the litter of a camp equipage scattered on the turf about it; and between the tent and the river, where shone the flank of a bass-wood canoe moored between the alders, an artist had set up his easel. He was a young man, tall and gaunt, and stood back a little way from his canvas with paint-brush held at a slope, while across it he studied the subject of his picture—a grey bridge and the butt-end of a grey building, with a sign-board overtopping the autumnal willows.
For a few seconds the children observed him in silence. But some sound must have warned him; for by and by he turned a quick, eager face, and caught sight of them.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, scanning them rapidly up and down. "The very thing!—that is to say"—after a second and more prolonged scrutiny— "the boy. He just fills the bill. 'Youthful Shakespeare Mews his Mighty Youth. The scene: Binton Bridges, beside Avon.'"
"Binton Bridges?" echoed Tilda, and walked forward to scan the sign-board.
"I must put that down," said the artist, drawing out a notebook and pencil. "Ignorance of Juvenile Population in respect of Immediate Surroundings. Implied Reproach against Britain's Primary Schools."