Poor Phil! There was a sharp pain at his honest heart, I knew. I watched him from the window, as with hasty strides he crossed the lawn, and disappeared into the woods. But Josephine didn't see; Mr. Rutledge was sketching a plan for the decorations, and she was leaning over the paper with fixed attention.
"If those people are coming to lunch," said Ella Wynkar, getting up from a tête-à-tête chat with the captain, "it is time we were dressed to receive them. Come, Josephine, it would never be forgiven, if we should not be ready."
"Yes," exclaimed Mr. Rutledge, starting up and looking at his watch, "I had forgotten about that. They will be here in half an hour. Miss Josephine, did you ever effect your toilet in half an hour, in your life?"
"You shall see!" cried Josephine, dancing out of the room. Mrs. Churchill followed, with a laughing apology for her daughter's wild spirits; since she had been at this delightful place, she had, she declared, been like a bird let loose.
"The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods,"
I longed to say to my aunt, would hardly know how to enjoy them. The miserable prisoner that had spent all its life, in narrow cramped limits, on the sill of a city window, hopped on a smooth perch, and eaten canary-seed and loaf-sugar since its nativity, would hardly be at home in wide, sunny fields, or "groves deep and high," would shudder to clasp with its tender claws the rough bark of the forest twigs, and would be doubtful of the flavor of a wild strawberry, and think twice before it would stoop to drink of the roaring mountain-stream. It would, I fancy, before nightfall, creep miserably back to its cage, as the fittest, safest, most comfortable place for its narrowed and timid nature.
"So!" said Victor, looking at me with a curl on his handsome lip, as the drawing-room was vacated by all but ourselves. "Are you going to spend an hour of this splendid fresh morning in making yourself fine?"
"Not if I know myself intimately!" I exclaimed, cramming my work, thimble, and scissors into my workbox, and springing up. "I do not fancy devoting three hours to those tiresome Mason girls nor their horse-and-dog brothers. I shall never be missed, and I am going to the village for a walk."
"Why to the village?" said Victor, following me, and reaching down my flat hat from the deer's horns that it had been decorating in the hall. "Why will you not come to the lake and let me row you up to the pines?"
"I ought to have paid my devoirs to the housekeeper at the Parsonage the very day I arrived," I answered, as we descended the steps. "She is a great friend of mine, and she will be hurt if I neglect her any longer. Indeed, it's a very pleasant walk, and you'll be repaid for taking it, if we should find Mr. Shenstone at home. He is so kind, and the very best man in the world."