"They are like that," said Curly.
* * * * *
Next morning, Mr. Wycherly told Jane-Anne that the friend who had dined with him the night before was an actor, and that the company he was in was performing "As you Like It" that afternoon in a ducal garden not very far from Oxford; and finally that he was going to take her to see it.
That day was one long festa for Jane-Anne. First of all came the drive, sitting side by side with Mr. Wycherly in a hired victoria. She wore her best summer frock and hat, beautiful white garments chosen by Mrs. Methuen, that filled her soul with rapture every time she put them on; white cotton gloves that Mrs. Dew had washed that morning, thin black stockings, and the light shoes Mr. Wycherly had insisted upon after he had seen her dance under the apple-tree.
Mrs. Dew watched them drive away with great pride.
"I will say this," she said to her friend, Miss Morecraft, that afternoon, "that when Jane-Anne's dressed you couldn't tell her from one of the gentry. She's got something about her, my sister had it, and her father—not as I ever cared for him—had it, too. I think if my sister could have seen her this afternoon she'd be set up, that I do. He's a fine-looking old gentleman, too; handsome he is, and no mistake."
A good many people regarded the quaint pair with pleasure. They were so manifestly proud and fond of each other, and the child was so radiantly happy. The crowds of well-dressed people delighted her. The garden was beautiful, the weather perfect, and with thrills of the wildest excitement she recognised Curly as Orlando.
When it was over, her first criticism was characteristic. "I'd have made a better boy than that if I'd been Rosalind; she wasn't a bit like a boy really, was she? If ever I pretended to be a boy I'd try to behave like Master Edmund, then I don't believe anyone would rekkernise me."
"I don't think Shakespeare meant Rosalind to be a finished actress. She is a supremely lovable girl. I don't think we would care so much for her if we didn't realise the girl all the way through," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully.
"Perhaps that pretty lady was right then," said Jane-Anne; "but somehow I think Rosalind would have tried to behave more like a boy."