“Frivolous!” sighed Madeline, “when I put in all Babe’s lofty sentiments about the poetry of Burns, and a whole paragraph on our interest in Gothic architecture. Besides, why shouldn’t we be frivolous now and then? Nobody can accuse us of not seeing what’s to be seen, and think how industriously we’ve read up on Flora Macdonald.”
“For fun,” objected Babe.
“If you can make play out of work you’ve learned the art of true happiness,” declared Madeline. “Isn’t that the gospel of Bohemia and of Harding, as I’ve been expounding it for four long and weary years? By the way, Mr. Dwight said he might be up this afternoon, so I suppose I’d better not go out until later.”
“You and Mr. Dwight are getting awfully chummy,” said Babe. But it was no fun teasing Madeline about men, because she never cared enough even to listen to what one was saying. Now she answered coolly that it was lucky Mr. Dwight hadn’t made his announcement more general, since it had turned out to be such a perfect afternoon for a walk. After the rest were safely out of the way she went to find Miss MacNish, who looked very much amazed when Madeline explained what articles she wanted, but got them for her all the same, and helped her do them up into a neat parcel, which Mr. Dwight smuggled out through the garden just as the others were coming in by the front gate.
At four o’clock the next afternoon John drew up the finest pair of horses to be hired in Oban with a grand flourish in front of Daisybank Villa, and Mr. Dwight helped Mrs. Hildreth and the girls to climb into the high seats of the trap, while Miss MacNish stowed away a tea-basket and all sorts of inviting looking boxes and bundles under their feet.
“Do ye ken that all American lassies are like these?” she asked her little maid, as they stood at the gate waving a farewell to the picnickers. “They’re verra nice lodgers—but they do take some crazy notions,” she added grimly, remembering Madeline’s confidence of the afternoon before.
“I’m glad we have plenty of time to-day,” said Babbie, with a little sigh of satisfaction, when, after a brisk drive, they drew up in the castle yard. “I want to go all through the beech-wood, and climb down the cliffs to the edge of the water, and sit on the parapet and imagine that I’m a Norwegian princess waiting for her lover who’s coming from across the sea in a little boat with a white sail.”
“Goodness, how romantic!” sniffed Babe. “Where are we going to have tea?”
“Mrs. Hildreth, you decide that,” said John. “When you’ve chosen a spot we’ll pile the baskets and things near it, and then I’m going back to the farm to get an armful of wood for the signal-fire. Your forest is too well kept, Babbie. There are no twigs on the ground for the convenience of the ship-wrecked mariner who wants to signal the nearest dwelling for help. It’s a shame.”
“Miss Ayres and I will get your wood,” suggested Mr. Dwight. “I’ve promised to take her to the farm to see if any of the family knows how to speak Gaelic.”