Guy's pale face beamed with delight as Salome came into the room. Poor suffering little one! he had not much variety in his life, and Salome's visits were always hailed by him as a great event. She told him a story sometimes, every detail of which he would drink in with hungry eagerness. Salome was a favourite with Aunt Betha as well as with little Guy, and she turned to her with a bright smile of welcome on her pleasant old face, taking off her spectacles and rubbing her eyes.
"I am getting past this fine marking," she said, "though I don't think that dinner napkin is amiss," holding it up for admiration.
"I wonder you take the trouble, auntie," Katie said. "Every one writes on linen now-a-days. Mamma says it is quite old-fashioned. Do give it up."
"No, my dear," said Aunt Betha half sadly. "I am an old-fashioned person, and I could never bear to see beautiful linen inked all over with blotted scrawls. No new fashion would make me believe that this is not the best plan. That mark will last long after I am in my grave. I am not ashamed of my handiwork, I can tell you."
Salome had taken up the table-napkin and was admiring the three well-shaped letters L. E. W. and the neat figures beneath, the number and the year, when Guy's little voice was raised in appeal.
"Cousin 'Lome,"—his nearest approach to Salome's name—"do come and talk to Guy; tell about when you were a little girl, at your big house—tell about the bridge."
"A little girl!" thought Aunt Betha, as she saw Salome's slight, almost child-like figure bending over Guy. "She is but a child now, so young and delicate-looking, and not one to breast many of the storms of this troublesome world."
The boys came in to dinner in good time; and about two o'clock the happy party of four cousins set off for the Stoke Canon Woods.
Digby and Reginald were now fast friends; and Kate held to her first affection for Salome. Salome enjoyed Kate for a time, her sharp speeches and rippling fun were amusing at intervals; but she often thought that she would not care always to live with Kate, or skim over the surface of everything as she did.
The daffodils were in their full glory in a field and orchard beyond Stoke Canon Woods. Many poets of every age have sung their praises; but who can really convey any idea of their loveliness as they bend their beautiful heads to the crisp breeze as it passes over them, and catch the sunlight on their pale golden cups?