“You know I can’t run to it, dear.”
“I know you’re altogether too beastly proud,” was the answer. “If we gave you a birthday present of a new hat you wouldn’t be too proud to take that, and a return ticket here runs to far less. It’s an absurd distinction.”
But the other’s head shake was quite decided.
“We’ve hammered all that out before,” she said. “Look, your uncle has finished his siesta. Here he comes.”
The two girls had been picking wild flowers and had wandered away from the spot where they had been picnicking on sandwiches and ginger-beer—and something stronger for the only male of the party. It was a lovely spot, an intermingling of heath and woodland, and the white stems of birches supporting their new feathery foliage, stood out in relief from a background of dark firs. Just glimpsed in the distance beyond stood a venerable wooden windmill raised on piles—one of its sails missing and another falling in half through sheer old age, like teeth. The whole made for that combination of charm and the picturesque so characteristic of, if not unique, as a sample of English rural scenery.
“Well,” said Mervyn, knocking the ashes out of his pipe as he joined them, and looking very placid and contented. “Isn’t it time to saddle up? We’ve come a precious long way, remember, and you have to allow a margin for punctures.”
But Melian overruled him.
“We needn’t hurry, you know, dear,” she urged. “And it’s Violet’s last day.”
“I know it is, worse luck,” he answered, kindly, “I wish it needn’t be. Then again, we must also allow for that inspection of ‘old stones’ you threatened to deflect us from our way to go and adore.”
“Oh, Chiltingford? You must see that, Violet. And there’s a ripping old pair of stocks too. By Jove, but that’s good enough!”