'I'd like to see the ground Bart spoke of sowing Burnett on,' he said, plunging away from his mistake. 'Will you walk down with me, Miss Cameron? It is quite cool and pleasant now.'
Hermie rose to her feet, then remembered her shabby little shoes that she had all this time been successfully hiding beneath her long dress.
'Oh,' she said, 'it's too far. Floss will go with you, won't you, Floss? I will go in and help Miss Browne with tea.'
CHAPTER X
'I Love You'
'The bird of life is singing on the bough
His two eternal notes of "I and Thou."'
It was after tea, and the long shadows of the dusk had fallen so gently, so tenderly, that even Dunks' selection had a beauty of its own.
Mortimer sat on the verandah and talked war to Mr. Cameron till his very soul loathed the Transvaal. Then he was captured by Bart, and forced into the dining-room to explain something in the Town and Country Journal, and give his opinion on the merits of Johnson's Grass.
And when he went outside again, Roly and Floss hung upon his arms and begged and begged him to 'come with us a bit.'
At eight o'clock he broke away from them, and stumbled through the dark passage to the kitchen regions to seek Miss Browne.