"Come, Miss Dorothy," cried Susan, "do pray walk a little faster. Dear me! how heavy do you trudge along, with your arms hanging down by your sides! Why, you will not take the trouble to lift your feet from the ground—pray look what a dust you raise at every step. Come, take me by the arm—look, what a pretty wood this is we are got into, and—oh dear! what a quantity of strawberries there are upon that bank. Do you see how beautiful and red they appear among the brambles and dry sticks which lie over them?"
The very idea of something to eat was sure to rouse Dorothy. Constance and Julia also advanced to look at the strawberries; they were very tempting, and they each wished to taste them, but there were difficulties in the way not likely to be conquered.
Julia's desire for them soon vanished, for she recollected that she had neither cream nor sugar, without which she did not think them eatable.
Dorothy said they were very good without either, and she wished she had a good basket-full, she would soon shew them how well she liked them; but they could not be got at without removing the brambles and wood, which appeared to have been purposely laid over them, to preserve them till they were ripe; and Dorothy, after taking away three or four sticks, and a bush or two, began to puff and blow, as if she had been running a race, and declared she could do no more, much as she wished for the strawberries, if it would save her life.
"How can you be so extremely lazy?" exclaimed Constance, eager to get at the tempting fruit. "You cannot bear to take the least trouble, Dorothy—come, let me help you; I should be sorry to leave them. What a beautiful scarlet they are, and how finely they smell!—Come, come, let us remove these brambles."
Dorothy had thrown herself upon the grass, declaring she could not stir; and Susan, who was well acquainted with the dispositions of her three young ladies, determined not to interfere.
Constance began very briskly to take away the brambles; but she had scarcely uncovered a few of the strawberries, when a small insect, which she had disturbed, flew out of a bush directly against her, entangled its little wings in her hair, and almost frightened her into fits. She ran to Susan in the most terrible alarm, insisting that a hornet had got into her hair, and that she should be stung to death in an instant. She prevailed upon her sisters to leave the spot immediately, and nobody could persuade her but that she had disturbed a hornet's nest, and had had a most miraculous escape.
They spent the afternoon with their young friend much in the usual manner; each of them constantly meeting with something or other to disturb them and spoil their pleasure.
Returning in the evening through the wood, they saw a group of little boys and girls sitting under the trees, and eating strawberries; some had their hats full, some held them in their hands, and others in little baskets of their own making.
Susan asked them where they had gathered so many strawberries. "Why there," answered one of the boys, "where you see the bushes and brambles all in a heap. We covered them up above a week ago, to let them ripen; but I wonder we did not lose them all, for somebody has been here, I am sure, though I suppose they did not see the nice strawberries, or they never would have been such fools as to leave them: but it was well for us that they were so blind."