"Oh!" said Lionel, rather confused, "I don't know so much about her. She's only once been out to the valley since I was there. She seems a nice girl, and certainly she's mighty pretty."
"Lion's blushing," remarked Imogen. "He always does blush when he speaks of that Miss Carr."
"Rot!" muttered Lionel, with a wrathful look at his sister. "I do nothing of the kind. But, Squire, when are you coming over to see for yourself how we look and behave? I think you and the Madam would enjoy a summer in the High Valley very much, and it would be no end of larks to have you. Isabel would like it of all things."
"Oh, I know I should. I would start to-morrow, if I could. I'm coming across to make Clover and Imogen a long visit the first moment that papa and mamma can spare me."
"That will be a long time to wait, I fear," said her mother, sadly. "Since Mr. Matthewson married and carried off poor Helen's children, the house has seemed so silent that except for you it would hardly be worth while to get up in the morning. We can't spare you at present, dear child."
"I know, mamma, and I shall never go till you can. The perfect thing would be that we should all go together."
"Yes, if it were not for that dreadful voyage."
"Oh, the voyage is nothing," broke in the irrepressible Lionel, "you just take some little pills; I forget the name of them, but they make you safe not to be sick, and then you're across before you know it. The ships are very comfortable,—electric bells, Welsh rabbits at bed-time, and all that, you know."
"Fancy mamma with a Welsh rabbit at bed-time!—mamma, who cannot even row down to Gallantry on the smoothest day without being upset! You must bait your hook with something else, Lionel, if you hope to catch her."
"How would a trefoil of clover-leaves answer?" with a smile,—"she, Geoff, and the boy."