‘But it might be let,’ said Mysie.
‘Yes, I’ve got a tenant in agitation,’ said Lord Rotherwood mischievously. ‘Never mind, I dare say he won’t inquire what you have done with his butter and eggs.’
So with a parting salute to the ancestral halls, the cavalry was set in order, big panniers full of moss and flowers disposed on the donkeys, Fly placed on her pony, and every maiden taking her basket of flowers, Jasper and Ivinghoe alone being amiable, or perhaps trustworthy enough to assist in carrying. Fly’s pony demurred to the extra burthen, so Jasper took hers; and when Gillian declared herself too fond of her flowers to part with them, Ivinghoe astonished Miss Vincent, on whom some stones of Fergus’s, as well as her own share of flowers, had been bestowed, by taking one handle of her most cumbrous basket.
Sir Jasper and Lord Rotherwood rode together through the happy young troop on the homeward way. Perhaps Ivinghoe was conscious of a special nod of approval from his father.
On passing Rock House, the youthful public was rather amused at his pausing, and saying—
‘Aren’t you going to leave some flowers there?’
‘Oh yes!’ said Gillian. ‘I have a basket on purpose.’
‘And I have some for Maura,’ said Valetta.
Valetta’s was an untidy bunch; Gillian’s a dainty basket, where white violets reposed on moss within a circle of larger blossoms.
‘That’s something like!’ quoth Ivinghoe.