CHAPTER XL.
ALCIDES.
There was quite a battle-royal on the sea-shore after that: Dulce and Phillis pelted Laddie with bonbons; while their mother enjoyed her nap in the snug parlor. And Dorothy, pleased, bewildered, and half frightened at what the mistress might say, stowed away game and fruit and confectionery in the tiny larder, and then turned her attention to such a tea as her young ladies had not seen since the Glen Cottage days.
Laddie raced and barked, and nearly made himself ill with the sweet things; and Nan laughed, and then grew serious as she remembered an afternoon in the Longmead Meadows, when Dick, in wild spirits, had pelted her and Phillis with roses until their laps were full of the delicious, fragrant leaves. “‘Sweets to the sweet,’—so look out for yourself, Nan!” he had said, in his half-rough, boyish way. But that was in the days when both were very young and Dick had not learned to make love.
Mattie joined in the game a little awkwardly,—it was so long since the poor little woman had played at anything. Her younger sisters never chose Mattie in their games. “She makes such mistakes, and puts us out; and that spoils the fun,” they said; and so Grace was their favorite playfellow.
For it is perfectly true that some grown-up people have forgotten how to play, while others are such children at heart that they can abandon themselves most joyously and gracefully to any game, however romping; but Mattie, who was sobered by frequent snubbing, was not one of these. She loved fun still, in her way, but not as Phillis and Dulce, who thought it the 293 cream of life and would not be content with the sort of skimmed-milk existence of other young ladies.
Sir Harry watched them admiringly, and his enthusiasm grew every moment.
“I say, you are the right sort, and no mistake. I never met jollier girls in my life. A fellow would not know which to choose: would he, Miss Mattie?”