‘And those little cakes at Ricketty’s, with chocolate on them. Put on your hat, Betty, and come down town with me, and we’ll astonish the natives yet!’
But Betty had too much to do, and finally Carew had gone off with Dom on a foraging quest, and now, as the girls come out of the drawing-room, they meet the two boys ‘laden with golden grain,’ like the Argosy, and eager to display their purchases.
Such grapes! Such dear sweet little cakes! They are all enchanted; and soon the table, delicately laid out in a corner of the queer, pretty old garden, is a sight to behold! And beyond lies the tennis-court—one only, but so beautifully mown and rolled, looking like the priest of famous history, all ‘shaven and shorn.’
‘Didn’t I tell you it was a perfect old garden?’ Lady Forster is saying, addressing Lady Muriel, who is laughing, quite immensely for her, at one of Carew’s boyish jokes. Lady Forster is dressed in one of her smartest gowns—a mere trifle, perhaps, but done to please, and therefore a charming deed. And all her guests, incited by her, no doubt, have donned their prettiest frocks, so that Miss Barry’s garden at this moment presents a picture more suggestive of a garden-party at Twickenham than a quiet tea in the grounds of an old Irish rectory.
‘It is too pretty for anything,’ says Lady Muriel. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for a good deal. I think it was very kind of your aunt, Mr.——’
‘Carew!’ says he quickly.
‘May I? What a charming name! It was very kind of your aunt, Carew’—smiling—‘to ask us here.’
‘It is very kind of you to come,’ says Carew.
‘Do you run over to town?’ asks Lady Muriel. It has occurred to her that she would like to repay this pretty kindness of Miss Barry’s.