'I wish she would,' replies Prue dejectedly, her small face already overcast at the prospect of twenty-four hours' separation.
'It seems hard that one can never be perfectly well off without there coming some element of change and disintegration,' says Freddy, with a subdued sadness. 'Well, God bless you, darling! Take care of her, Peggy! Take good care of my Prue! Be waiting for me, Prue, at the garden-gate at twelve o'clock to-morrow!'
And Prue does wait, is waiting long before the appointed hour; waits—it would be piteous to say for how long after that hour—waits in vain, for Freddy comes not. He does not return all that day; nor is it till late on the next that he comes stepping, cool and smiling, across the evening shadows.
'Do not go to meet him,' says Peggy half crossly; 'he does not deserve it!'
But she speaks, as she had known that she would, to inattentive ears. It was, indeed, only as a relief to her own feelings that she had given that futile counsel. It is some time before they rejoin her, and when they do—
'It was not quite so bad as you expected, I suppose?' Margaret says, a little drily.
'When is anything so bad as one expects?' replies Freddy evasively, throwing himself into his accustomed chair; 'by Jove! how the pear-tree has come out since I left!'
'That was two whole days ago!' says Prue, rather wistfully.
'Two whole days ago!—so it was—
"Measured by opening and by closing flowers!"