Under his guidance, too, they began a collection of butterflies and one of wild-flowers, and altogether the time passed so happily that it was almost with regret that they saw the end of August approaching.
Mr Maxwell was going to take up his work in his new parish in the beginning of September, and the happy party must then be broken up.
‘Another month, and you will be quite settled down in Cornwall, mon ami,’ said the Vicomte one evening, as they were idly drifting down the Rance in a little white rowing-boat, ‘and I will be preparing to set out to visit you and to rub up my English a little.’
‘And we will be home again,’ said Ronald in such a melancholy voice that every one laughed. ‘Of course,’ he went on apologetically, ‘I shall be very glad to be back with father and mother and little Dorothy, especially now that Vivi will be there too; but it has been so jolly here, and after the holidays it may be rather dull at home, for the Strangeways are going to school, and we will need to do our lessons alone.’
‘I thought you never much liked the Strangeways, and didn’t mind their going away,’ said Vivian.
‘No; I didn’t much care for them as long as I had you; but they were better than nobody,’ said Ronald candidly. ‘We will be the only boys in the neighbourhood now, and I don’t think we will go to school till next year at least. But, anyhow, they will not be gone for a week or two after we go back, so it won’t be so very quiet just at first, and we will get used to it after a bit.’
Vivian said nothing, but his face flushed. No one knew how he was dreading the return home and the shower of questions which he knew would be poured upon him by Fergus, and Vere, and Charlie. He would have done anything in the world to have avoided the meeting; but he knew it was unavoidable, so he was trying to accept it as part of his punishment, and to face it as bravely as he could.
Perhaps Mr Maxwell read his thoughts, for he laid his hand kindly on his shoulder.
‘I wonder how you two boys would like to come straight down to Cornwall with me?’ he said, smiling. ‘I have been thinking lately that I shall be very lonely after all the companionship which I have had here.—What say you, Ronald; do you think that we could do Latin and Greek together, and you could go on with your sketches?’
‘It would be jolly, sir,’ said Ronald; ‘but I am afraid we must go home now. The holidays are nearly past, and we can’t go everywhere.’