"Too wonderful" said Georgie. "I shall watch you. Here we are.
Look, there's Perdita's flower. What a beauty!"
It was not necessary to press the mermaid's tail, for Lucia had seen them from the music-room, and they heard her high heels clacking over the polished floor of the hall.
"Listen! No more need of high heels!" said Mrs Quantock. "And I've got something else to tell you. Lucia may hear that. Ah, dear Lucia, what a wonderful Perdita-blossom!"
"Is it not?" said Lucia, blowing kisses to Georgie, and giving them to Daisy. "That shows spring is here. Primavera! And Peppino's piccolo libro comes out today. I should not be a bit surprised if you each of you found a copy of it arrived before evening. Glorious! It's glorious!"
Surely it was no wonder that Georgie's blood began to canter along his arteries again. There had been very pleasant exciting years before now, requiring for their fuel no more than was ready at this moment to keep up the fire. Mrs Quantock was on tip-toe, so to speak, to increase her height, Peppino was just delivered of a second of these vellum volumes with seals and tapes outside, Mrs Weston was going to become Mrs Colonel at the end of the week, and at the same hour and church Elizabeth was going to become Mrs Atkinson. Had these things no savour, because——
"How is 'oo?" said Georgie, with a sudden flush of the spring-time through him. "Me vewy well, sank 'oo and me so want to read Peppino's bookie-bookie."
"'Oo come in," said Lucia. "Evewybody come in. Now, who's got ickle bit news?"
Mrs Quantock had been walking on her toes all across the hall, in anticipation of the happy time when she would be from two to six inches taller. As the animated pamphlet said, the world assumed a totally different aspect when you were even two inches taller. She was quite sorry to sit down.
"Is next week very full with you, dear Lucia?" she asked.
Lucia pressed her finger to her forehead.