They saw the procession of boats; they were at the flower-show at Worcester; Sunday afternoon found them in the Broad Walk; and the next night they were dancing at the University ball.
They raved about the beauty of Magdalen cloisters; they looked down admiringly into the deer-park; Addison’s Walk became known to them, and the gardens of St. John’s. Phillis talked learnedly about Cardinal Wolsey as she stood in Christ Church hall: and in the theatre “the young ladies in pink” invoked the most continuous cheers.
“Can they mean us?” whispered Dulce, rather alarmed, to their faithful escort Dick. “I don’t see any other pink dresses!”
And Dick said, calmly,—
“Well, I suppose so. Some of those fellows up there are such a trumpery lot.”
So Dulce grew more reassured.
But the greatest fun of all was the afternoon spent in Dick’s room, when all his special friends were bidden to five o’clock tea, over which Nan, in her white gown, presided so gracefully.
What a dear, shabby old room it was, with old-fashioned window-seats, where one could look down into the quadrangle. Dick was an Oriel man, and thought his college superior even to Magdalen.
It became almost too hot and crowded at last, so many were the invitations given; but then, as Dick said afterwards, “he was such a soft-hearted beggar that he could not refuse the fellows that pestered him for invitations.”
Mrs. Mayne, looking very proud and happy, sat fanning herself in one of these windows. Phillis and Dulce were in the other attended by that rogue Hamilton and half a dozen more. Nan was the centre of another clique, who hemmed her and the tea-table in so closely that Dick had to wander disconsolately round the outskirts: there was no getting a look from Nan that afternoon.