Nancy laughed.
“Why the one in the old rhyme, ‘Hickery-dickory-dock; the mouse ran up the clock.’”
Mr. and Mrs. Bond exchanged glances of tolerant amusement. If there were many college girls like the ones in this party, modern college girls were not so bad after all.
“Here is a place we didn’t see,” said Miss Ashton, stepping into a small room with deep, orange-colored walls. “What a perfectly wonderful rug! Look here, girls!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Nancy, plopping down on the floor beside a magnificent white bearskin that was spread before a mammoth fireplace, and stroking the head delightedly.
“My nephew, who is a member of the Royal Mounted Police, shot the bear in the polar regions, and sent it to me,” said the hostess.
They could hardly get Nancy away from it, and it was with great reluctance that all of them left the attractive house and shaded lawns, where gay tables and striped umbrellas made one long for a cup of tea, even at ten o’clock in the morning.
“I’m going to get hold of the ‘Sam Slick’ books as soon as we get back,” asserted Nancy.
“Won’t it be fun to recognize the parts of the house mentioned in some of the books?” Jeanette agreed that it would, and notation was made of another thing to do “when they got home.”
“Just west of here,” said the driver, “on the edge of the Basin of Minas, lies the great marsh meadow known as Grand Pré. Minas opens into the Bay of Fundy, and is guarded by Cape Blomidon, both of which Longfellow mentions in his famous poem. You will notice the red mud flats on the banks of the river on this side of Nova Scotia,” he continued, as they drove across a quaint covered bridge. “They are all influenced by the famous double tides of the Bay of Fundy. Twice every twenty-four hours the tide, or ‘bore,’ as it is sometimes called, rushes into Fundy. The Avon River, for example, has a rise of thirty-four feet. When the tide is out, the river banks are a mass of red mud, veined by little trickles of water; when the tide comes in, with a mighty rush, all the banks are covered.”