“If it hadn’t been for Miss Sibby Bayard keeping us so long talking about her ancestor the ‘Duke of England’—she means the Duke of Norfolk all the time, but flouts us when we hint as much—we should have been here two hours ago, and been home by this time,” said Wynnette.
Miss Grandiere finished her note, put a shawl over her head and went out herself to speak to the coachman and send him home to Mondreer with her written message.
“Now take off your hats and coats, and tell me if you have had tea,” she said, when she came back into the room and closed the door.
“Oh, yes! we took tea with Miss Sibby while she told us how a certain ‘Duke of England’ lost his head for wanting to marry a certain Queen of Scotland,” replied Wynnette.
That question settled, the girls drew chairs around the fire, and began to make themselves comfortable.
Rosemary could not bear to give up her reading, just at that particular crisis, too! So she thought she would entice her company into listening to the story.
“We were reading—oh! such a beautiful book!” she said. “Just hear how lovely it begins!”
And she took the book up, turned it to the first page and commenced after this manner:
“‘Hail! sweet asylum of my infancy! Content and innocence abide beneath your humble roof!—hail! ye venerable trees! My happiest hours of childish gayety——’”
“What’s all that about?” demanded Wynnette, the vandal, ruthlessly interrupting the reader.