As I could not afford to hunt I missed the point of the signification.
Ah, those were happy days, those last few before we started!
All our serious preparations were finished and we had only to give a little general supervision to the packing of our respective servants. Ethel's experienced maid was going with her, of course.
This done, we used to stroll about together—the three of us—and enjoy the last few hours of the dear old place as much as we could in the beautiful bright weather.
I think Ethel and I even used to get a little bit romantic in the lovely moonlight nights, when the old oak-panelled corridors and staircases were bathed in the soft light. But we were very far from being in love with one another all the same.
I shall never forget that time of peace, which came in a period of storm and trial; the old red mansion with the river running not a hundred yards from it, and the graceful swans sailing to and fro, the glorious old trees of the avenue, the fine broad terrace with its splendid views over the low, undulating country, with a glimpse of Lynn Deeps on one hand and the white towers of St. Margaret's, the great church in the ancient town, on the other.
The dreamy, old-world air of the place, the smell even of the fresh-turned earth in the great gardens, the cawing of the circling rooks—it all comes back to me as if I had but walked out of it all an hour ago.
However, the morning soon came when we were to bid adieu to it all, and in the hurry and scurry of it and the race down to the station in the motor—for we were late, Ethel's maid having forgotten an important hat—perhaps we forgot all our peaceful happiness in our feverish speculations on our voyage across the Atlantic to that distant South American Republic, Aquazilia, and its mountain capital, Valoro.