“Gone it is!” responded Hester, folding her tiny hands upon her heart, and closing her eyes in an ecstasy of satisfaction. “Let nobody speak for five minutes. (Look at your watch, Mr. Gilchrist!) For five minutes we will make believe that the deed is done, and we are translated. I hear the surf on the shores of the
“Dear little isle of our own,
Where the winds never sigh, and the skies never weep.
“Hush!”
They humored this one of her caprices, as they had others. She was full of fancies, some odd, some ghastly, some graceful. Even practical May yielded obedience to the mandate, and, laying her head against the bole of the tree, met the bright eye of the mother robin peering over the edge of her nest with what May chose to interpret as a wink of intelligent amusement.
“She asked me as plainly as dumb show could ask, who would provide three meals a day for the happy exclusives, and, when I alluded to breadfruit trees and beefsteak geraniums, wanted to know where ovens and gridirons would come from,” said May afterward; “That formed the basis of my five-minute reverie.”
My soul, to-day,
Is far away,
Sailing the Vesuvian bay;
My winged boat,