"And I accepted for a week," retorted Mr. King, "and I go when that time is up. We've had a visit—I can't express it to you, what a fine time—as near to perfection as it is possible for a visit to be; but day after to-morrow we surely must leave."
Tom was so despondent, as well as the old earl, that it was necessary to cheer him up in some way. "Just think what a splendid thing for us to be in the midst of that fête for the peasantry," exclaimed Polly, with sparkling eyes. "It's quite too lovely for our last day."
But Tom wasn't to be raised out of his gloom in this way. "We've had only one game of cricket," he said miserably.
"And one afternoon at tennis, and we've been out punting on the river three times," said Polly.
"What's that? only a bagatelle," sniffed Tom, "compared to what I meant to do."
"Well, let's have the race on horseback this afternoon," proposed
Polly, "down through the park, that you said you were going to have,
Tom. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Do," urged Jasper. "It would be so capital, Tom."
"All right," assented Tom, "if you'd really rather have that than anything else; but it seems as if I ought to think up something more for the last afternoon, but the fête; and that doesn't count."
"Oh, nothing could be finer," declared Polly, and Jasper joined. So Tom rushed off to the stables to give the orders. And Polly on Meteor was soon flying up and down with the boys, and Elinor and Mary. And the two small lads trotted after on their Shetland ponies, in and out the winding roads of the park confines, without any haunting fear of a poor red fox to be done to death at the end.
And on the morrow, the sun condescended to come out in all his glory, upon the groups of tenantry scattered over the broad lawns. There were games in abundance for the men and boys; and others for the children. There were chairs for the old women, and long benches for those who desired to sit under the spreading branches of the great oaks to look on. And there were cups of tea, and thin bread and butter passed around by the white-capped maids, superintended by the housekeeper and the butler, quite important in their several functions. This was done to appease the hunger before the grand collation should take place later. And there was music by the fiddlers on the upper terrace, and there was,—dear me, it would take quite too long to tell it all!