It proved, however, time to think of it; and after a little more lingering and a few more raspberries the four took boat again. Flossy and Frederica rowed home through the soft summer twilight, while Arthur and Mysie sat side by side in the stern. Mysie sang a melancholy little song about “days of old,” and how
“The sky was blue in the days of old,
But now it is always grey;”
and then they all laughed at the way they would describe what Arthur called “their little summer outing” to the home party, for the sentiment of Mysie’s song found no echo in the heart of any one of them.
But the moon rose, and the boat came to land at last; they came home through the meadows; and the tea-drinking at “The Pot of Lilies” was over.
Part 3, Chapter XVIII.
Out in the Cold.
“Boys and girls, come out to play!”
So sang Florence Venning as she danced down the empty school-room at Oxley Manor on the 3rd of August. The last young lady had driven from the door—even the French governess had gone to see her friends; and Flossy, whose devotion to the cause of education by no means precluded a thorough enjoyment of peace and liberty, sang and danced as she picked up stray school grammars and dictionaries and consigned them to a six-weeks’ imprisonment in the cupboard. Clarissa had been standing on a form to reach its top shelf; and now she sat down on the desk, with her feet on the form, and yawned.