quoted Hermione.
Then the wild-flowers: what a feast of plant life! What various colour, shape, bloom—of every shade and tint, from the dingle, ‘where the rath violets grow,’ to the daffodil bank, by the [307] ]sun-kissed lake. ‘Isn’t that delicious?’ said Hermione; ‘who but our Shakespeare could have pictured so delightfully the lovely summer of old England, with the hedgerows and the pastures all glistening with dew! That dear lark is coming down again—a living song, floating through the blue ocean of sky—singing as he falls. Then at last dropping like a stone into the field—I saw him close to that patch of red clover.’
‘But we have skylarks in Australia,’ said Vanda, who objected to unqualified praise of England for being England; ‘our bird doesn’t fly so high, certainly, and stops more quickly, but he sings a sweet little tuneful lay. He has not had a thousand years in which to practise.’
This colloquy took place one morning before breakfast, at which unusual time, about 5 A.M., these young people elected to get up, for once in a way, that they might be enabled to say they had seen an English sunrise, and heard an English skylark. They were staying at an old—ever so old English hall, where everything was in keeping with tradition and history. The century-old oaks were there; the forest was the same, mercifully spared, and lovingly tended; the aged oaks were the immediate descendants of those under which Gurth and Wamba lay and chaunted their roundelay when Bois-Guilbert, the Templar of the period, inquired the way to Rotherwood, and was directed all wrong by the eccentric Wamba.
Yes! there were the oaks, huge of girth, mighty of spread and shade, and clothed to the very tips of their enormous branches with delicate leaflets, bursting [308] ]buds, and every variety of leafage which goes to furbish up the glorious green garb of an English spring.
Now that the spring had arrived, the real English spring—written about, talked about, sung about by everybody that had ever been in England, or read about the great and glorious Motherland—they were all mad with hope and expectation, also with ardent desire to go in and possess the land of faerie. Fortunately, for once, the climate did not betray them. The weather continued fine and open. Frosts were few and far between. The grass in the meadows, thick and verdant, spread a velvet garment over all the land. Over the fields around stood ancient farm-houses, near villages with names as old as the Norman Conquest. Around were ruined abbeys and crumbling spires, besides bridges over brooks, where swam the fat carp which had tempted the monks to sink their foundations first, and to follow up with the stately piles, which sheltered so many a lordly abbot and his train of cowled brethren, lay and spiritual, with servitors, tenants, and retainers, military and otherwise.
All this strengthened the desire of the Bannerets to establish themselves in a country residence, whence they might issue forth in quest of the more desirable entertainments, at the same time preserving the home feeling, and having a pied à terre which would give them standing in the county superior to that of mere birds of passage.
The girls of the family, now that the spring was distinctly on, and the summer, by natural course of nature, might be expected to follow, [309] ]desired no change. They felt, and indeed repeatedly affirmed, that their cup of joy was full—that they never expected to be so truly, consciously, ecstatically happy. Every night Hermione and Vanda retired, after a day filled with novel and delicious sensations, to dream of a new kind of felicity on the morrow; a forecast the reality of which rarely disappointed them. Their parents occasionally uttered a note of warning as to the too eager pursuit of pleasure, and the need of moderation even, on the score of health. But there was small reason for caution on that score: the young people had exceptionally strong constitutions—sound, unworn, and elastic, with all the marvellous recuperative power of early youth. Their cousins and friends in the country districts of Australia had been known to ride thirty or forty miles to a ball, at which to dance until daylight afterwards, with but little or no fatigue. They belonged to the same type, and were not a whit behind them in endurance, defying fatigue or lassitude where pleasure or interesting travel was concerned. So all manner of recreative experiences had been tested—hackneys for the park, rides and drives, concerts and theatres, balls and parties, receptions given by certain returned Governors, to whom they had been socially known in Australia. These proconsuls lost no time in inviting them to entertainments where they met various great ones of the land, to whom it was explained that they were really ‘nice’—distinguished even in a sense, and ever so rich—owning gold mines of unquestioned, almost fabulous richness.
There was then no difficulty about invitations [310] ]and engagements; the trouble was to keep up with them all, and so arrange that they did not clash, and at the same time to find out the right people at whose entertainments to be ‘seen.’ They were naturally popular in this new environment, with more or less foreign elements. The girls were voted pretty (Hermione, indeed, was very handsome), well dressed, well mannered, and above all ‘nice’—that mysterious adjective which goes for so much in English society. The young men, too, were good-looking, well turned out, and so closely resembling Englishmen of their age and standing, that surprise was expressed that they should be Australians, there being no peculiarity of accent, or appearance, betokening their colonial origin. They were also athletic beyond average form—being skilled at tennis, cricket, and other fashionable games.
Now the vitally important matter next on hand was the selection of a home. Mr. Banneret, after due consideration, had decided to invest in an estate. The Hotel Cecil was well managed, comfortable, even luxurious. It was, of course, expensive, even perhaps extravagant. But that was not the reason for disapproval. Money was no object, as the phrase runs.