'How quietly you came,' I said; 'and oh, mamma, doesn't it remind you of Les Ailes de Courage?'
'Yes,' she replied, 'I know exactly what you mean.'
And then we stood perfectly still and silent for a moment or two, taking it all in, more and more, till a very tiny sigh from mamma reminded me of something else—that dear papa was on that same great sea that we were gazing at—perhaps standing on the deck of the steamer and thinking of us—but so far away already!
'It is chilly,' said mamma, 'and we must not begin our life here by catching cold. We had better go in, dear. I think it is going to be a lovely day, but in the meantime I hope Hoskins has given us a fire in the dining-room.'
Yes—a nice bright little fire was crackling away merrily, a handful or two of the children's cones on the top. And the room looked quite cosy and tidy, as Margery had finished dusting and so on, in here, and was now busy at the other side.
'I will go and see how Esmé is getting on,' said mamma. 'She had had her bath before I came out, but there may be difficulties with her hair. And you might hurry up the boys, Ida, for I have promised Hoskins to be very punctual, and breakfast will be ready by eight.'
It was a good thing I did go to hurry up the boys—they were both fast asleep! Geordie looked dreadfully ashamed when I at last managed to get him really awake, and Denzil almost began to cry. He had planned with Esmé, he said, to have a run down to the sands before breakfast, and Hoskins knew and had promised them a slice of bread and butter and a drink of milk.
'Did she not wake you then?' I asked. 'She woke Esmé at seven, but I was already up.'
Geordie could not remember if he had been awakened or not. Denzil thought Margery had come in and said something about 'seven o'clock,' but it was all mixed up with a wonderful dream that he wanted me to stay to listen to, about a balloon (he had heard us talking about Taisy's balloon) with long cords hanging from it, like those in the grandfather's clock in the hall 'at home,' for you to climb up and down by, as if they were rope-ladders.
'You must have gone to sleep again and dreamt it through the word "o'clock" getting into your brain,' I said, whereupon I felt as if I had got out of the frying-pan into the fire, for instead of telling the rest of his dream, Denzil now wanted to know exactly what I meant, and what his brain was 'like,' and how a word could get into it—was it a box in his head, and his ears the doors, etc., etc.—Denzil had a dreadfully 'inquiring mind,' in those days—till I really had to cut him short and fly.