Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows, crown'd with summer sea.”
Luckily I recollected the quotation, for I had not been letter-perfect I should have had a poor chance of a bright future with Dorothy.
As it was, however, she only felt if the big tomato was as ripe as it seemed, and said,—
“'Orchard-lawns.' H'm, I wonder if Tennyson, with all his 'careful-robin' observation of the little things of Nature was aware that you should never let grass grow in an apple orchard.”
“I wonder, indeed,” I said, with what I considered a graceful acquiescence. “But at the same time I think I should tell you that there are no little things in Nature.”
“I suppose there are not,” said she. “Anyhow, you will have the biggest tomato in Nature in your salad with the cold lamb. Is that the bell?”
“It is the ghost-tinkle of the bell of the bell-wedder who was the father of the lamb,” said I poetically.
“So long as you do not mention the mother of the lamb when you come to the underdone stratum, I shall be satisfied,” said she.
PS.—(1.30)—And I didn't.