“Yes.”
“Grace next I suppose? Oh, there is my mother beckoning to me, Miss Thorne,” said the squire hastily, “it is a pity to have so pleasant an affair spoiled. Would you mind hinting to Mr Burge that he should ask the vicar to say grace!”
“Oh, yes, I will,” said Hazel, nodding to him.
“As if he were her equal,” said Miss Lambent indignantly; while, hurrying to the end of the table. Hazel was just in time to whisper to the host.
“Why, of course,” he said. “What a stupid! Thank you. Miss Thorne. Mr Lambent!” he cried aloud, “would you be kind enough to say grace?”
Out in the field then, with the sun shining, the band playing, and plenty of enjoyment for the schools, which were separated by a rope stretched from one end to the other. Races were run for prizes of all kinds, and, full of animation, while the vicar stood with his hands behind him patronisingly looking on, the young squire was the life and soul of the affair, and ready with a dozen fresh ideas to suggest to the host. There were prizes for the fastest runners, prizes for the slowest, for the first in and the last in, for jumps and hops, and the best singers, and the worst singers, scramblings, blindfold-walking, sports galore.
Hazel forgot her troubles, and with Miss Burge’s help she was always the centre, of some new sport or game; Cissy and Mabel being like a pair of attendant fairies, ready to be seized upon by Mr Canninge as the bearers of the prizes that were to be won.
“I never saw George so full of spirits before,” said Mrs Canninge to Rebecca Lambent as they sat in a garden-chair looking on.
“I should say he will have a bad headache afterwards,” replied that lady.