"How sweet it all is! My father's country, too," she said. "Ah! he was right to love these grand old English homes, although he was but lowly born. What a grand old park, what sweet, green lanes, what a sweet and peaceful landscape! It is no wonder that the English love England!"
She remembered how her father, now dead and buried under the beautiful American skies, had loved England, and always intended to return to it some day with his daughter, that she might behold his native land.
She remembered how often he had quoted Mrs. Hemans' lines:
"The stately homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees
O'er all the pleasant land!
The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream."
"He loved the homes of England, although his fate was not cast with them," she said to herself. "Poor papa! I must try to love England for his sake; it was always dear to him, although he was fond of his kind adopted home, too!"
When they reached the ruins, she studied them carefully on every side to secure a picturesque view. She found that to get the best possible one she would have to sit down among the graves close to the little dismantled chapel.
"You bain't going to sit down amang them theer dead folk, missus?" inquired Johnnie, round-eyed, and on the alert for ghosts.
"Yes, I am. Are you afraid to stay, Johnnie?" she asked, laughing.
"Ya'as, I be," he replied, promptly.