'Oh, dear! I have had such a hunt for you,' she said. 'I went in to the Eltons after lunch to get them to show me a new stitch, and the girls and their father were out; he has gone to town, for a wonder. So Lady Elton and I sat chatting about old days, forgetting altogether how the time went, and then I came in to see about your supper, and Sarah told me you had been in an hour.'
'An hour or thereabouts, and I was just going out for a stretch. Can it be time for supper already?'
'No, not quite; but——'
And here she pulled up, for she perceived to her annoyance that Tom was not listening to her.
'Do you hear me, Tom?' she said. 'The post has just come in, and there is a letter——'
The boy held up his hand beseechingly. 'One moment, mother!' he pleaded. 'The letter will keep and that will not.'
Now Mrs. Gregory did not agree with him in the least; as a fact, she had come out to find him, being moved with an irresistible feeling of curiosity concerning the contents of his letter, which was of an unusual character, and addressed in an unusual hand. Tom had very few correspondents, and his mother generally knew from whom his letters came by merely glancing at them. But she knew from experience that Tom was not to be forced. Pliant as he seemed, there was a certain backbone of stubbornness about him. So, keeping herself in check as well as she could, she looked out at the sight 'which would not keep.' It was certainly a pretty picture. Anybody would have been bound to confess that. A pleasure-boat full of young girls, gliding softly along a broad tranquil stream; their light garments and brown and golden hair steeped in the rosy evening light. Of course it was pretty. Mrs. Gregory, who liked and admired the 'dear girls,' from beautiful Grace, the eldest, down to mischievous, tiresome, delightful Trixy, the privileged baby of the two establishments, thought it not only pretty but interesting. There was nothing new, however, nothing to provoke that irritatingly intense look on her son's face and delay the gratification of her curiosity.
But Tom! Ah! 'alchemy of youth and passion; how it transforms everything it touches!' To him not Cleopatra in her barge of state, floating proudly down her river to the strains of spirit quelling music, was so beautiful.
There were no less than five girls in the boat. Two of them had been rowing, and, as the impetus given by their last vigorous strokes carried it along, they leaned forward on their oars, gazing dreamily into the shadows; the third, a little golden-haired creature, lay in the bows with her face towards the water, and two sat in the stern—one, a royal-looking girl, whose tense expression, direct gaze, and upright attitude showed that she liked the post of directress steering; the other, a much softer, and, at the same time, a lovelier woman, sitting back with hands folded, and singing in a rich low voice a beautiful old English ballad.
As long as the voice could be heard and the boat seen the boy on the river bank looked out and listened. Presently the air carried the sounds away, and the outlines of the boat were lost in the shadows of the willows that fringed the opposite bank. Then he turned to his mother.