The others laughed at her enthusiasm, but they themselves were just as enthusiastic. The possibilities of spending whole days here in the shade and cool of the trees and rocks and of imagining that they were in the highlands of Scotland left them almost gasping.
"Don't you remember when Fitz-James first sees Ellen in the 'Lady of the Lake'?" asked Ethel Blue.
"He was separated from his men and found himself in a rocky glen overlooking a lake. The rocks were bigger than these but we can pretend they were just the same," and she recited a few lines from a poem whose story they all knew and loved.
"But not a setting beam could glow
Within the dark ravines below,
Where twined the path in shadow hid,
Round many a rocky pyramid."
"I remember; he looked at the view a long time and then he blew his horn again to see if he could make any of his men hear him, and Ellen came gliding around a point of land in a skiff. She thought it was her father calling her."
"And the stranger went home to their lodge and fell in love with her—O, it's awfully romantic. I must read it again," and Dorothy gazed at the rocks around her as if she were really in Scotland.
"Has anybody a knife?" asked Della's clear voice, bringing them all sharply back to America and Rosemont. "My aunt—the one who has the hanging flowerpots I was telling you about—isn't a bit well and I thought I'd make her a little fernery that she could look at as she lies in bed."