“Only a little after four,” said Patty, looking at her watch. “We can stay till five, Nan, and then get home by six.”
“All right,” returned Nan, who was walking along the narrow garden paths, admiring the old-fashioned flowers and tiny box borders.
Patty went into the little Inn, ordered tea and hot waffles and cakes, and then returned to Nan.
“It’s a dear little place,” she said. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been here before. Tea will be ready in twenty minutes.”
When served, the little repast was delightful. Old-time silver and old-fashioned china made it all seem quaint and interesting.
They dawdled over their tea, sometimes chatting, sometimes sitting silent. It was a bit of good fortune that these two were so congenial, for, Fate having thrown them together, they were much in each other’s company. As there was but six years’ difference in their ages, their relation was far more like sisters than like mother and daughter. And, though Nan never dictated to Patty, she taught her much by example, and, at the same time, she herself learned some things from her stepdaughter.
“S’pect we’d better move on, Nannie,” said Patty, at last, as it was nearly five. “I’ll pay the reckoning for this feast, and then we’ll start. Oh, it has just come to me!”
“What has?”
“That line of poetry that I couldn’t think of! This is it, ‘When swift Camilla scours the plain.’”
“Well, what of it?”