This is thought to be rather too wild work by those respectable old ewes, who, in their staid sobriety, have altogether forgotten the days of their youth. They lift their plain and anxious countenances from cropping the scented turf, and, with mouths full of thyme and heath, utter a few warning remonstrances, which only seem to stimulate the wild frolics of the young folks. Surely they don't mean to send that black, perfectly black lamb "to Coventry"? The insolent little rogues, it really looks so. They won't let him join in the fun, forgetting their own legs and noses: for they are but quadroons themselves, at the best: and so he retires to the genial society of his mother, in whose eyes he seems to be white and comely as a lily. Really, it is rather trying to think that these charming lambs will grow up into those ungainly and uninteresting old sheep.
Alice's garden is brilliant with flowers. "'Tis but a common cottage garden," you will say: no exotics, no rare and delicate plants. But here are England's dear old favorites, her best and choicest flowers. What can surpass those regal "cabbage roses," so round and so full, or those moss rose-buds growing under the lee of the white porch? Then there are "sweet-williams," deep red and variegated, very stiff and very handsome in their way: there are showy orange-colored lilies and queenly white ones: there are purple columbines, and great red peonies, and tall "Jacob's ladders," and grave "Solomon's seals": there are graceful sweet peas clinging for support to anything they can reach; and a little bed of spicy pinks, scenting the air like an island of the eastern seas. The beds are all edged either with box, or with double red and white daisies, or with the little fragile "witch's thimbles," chiming their small blue and white bells to every passing breeze.
But there is something going on under the broad shadow of the yew trees. On the smooth grass-plot which spreads before Alice's rustic seat, stands the long kitchen table, which must have been moved out of doors for festal purposes, because it is covered with a clean white table-cloth, and a number of chairs are placed round it. Plates of piled-up bread and butter, cut and buttered currant "wigs," a massive-looking cake, whose consistency is very much that of cold "figgy pudding," a beautiful dish of ripe strawberries, dressed out with leaves worthy of a ducal coronet *, and another dish of cherries from off the walls of the house, furnish the entertainment. There is a tea-tray also; and Mrs. Lawson's dozen of little old-fashioned silver teaspoons have been taken out of the old oak chest and rubbed up for the occasion.
* The strawberry-leaf is the ducal symbol, and is placed on the coronet.
But who are the guests? The widow is there, sitting up in her chair in considerable state as hostess; Alice, in simple gala costume, is flitting about with a brilliant flush of pleased expectation on her artless countenance; Mat is gone in to rub up his merry face until it shines like a rosy-cheeked apple, to comb his light hair down over his sun-burnt forehead, and to put on his best red waistcoat, with blue glass buttons, and his bright green neck-tie. Chance and Laddie have made no such distinguished toilette, but they are particularly on the alert, barking little gala salvos, and pricking their ears at every sound.
There is a sound now in the distance—a slow rumble of wheels in the direction of Green Gap. The dogs are violently excited by this, because a friend, a great buff sheep dog, with an enormous white plumy tail, always comes in company with the rumbling "shandry" * from Scarf Beck Farm. They are right in their apprehensions.
Mr. and Mrs. Hartley, a particularly comfortable, not to say jolly-looking couple, are sitting up in the high-backed seat, with Bella between them, and the young Hartley brothers are walking in front. This is evidently a state visit; tea out of doors at half-past three o'clock, and supper looming in the background at seven.
* The "travelling carriage" of the country—half-cart, half-gig.
We must have a photograph of Bella Hartley; for she is called by many, the Queen of the Dales. She is taller by half-a-head than young Alice Lawson, and of a far more noble figure and carriage. Her features are finely-cut; and her head, with its bountiful profusion of bright brown hair, sits with remarkable grace on her long neck and finely sloping shoulders. Her dress is a simple light print, with a colored ribbon round her throat.
Ah! there is a little story attached to that rather faded ribbon, and some amount of sentiment; or else it would not have been selected for this especial occasion. She has a grave, thoughtful, perhaps anxious look; but it has not been always there. Her face was as sparkling as her own Scarf Beck, until some twelve months ago, when, after a long and painful talk with Miles Lawson, that care-worn expression took up its settled abode on her lofty brow, and in her deep shadowy eyes.