The boys grouped themselves around and on the piano at which Muriel sat, accompanying indefatigably.
"Prithee pretty maiden, will you marry me?" sang Bobby Collins, still bandaged and orange-smeared.
"Hey, but he's doleful, willow, willow, waly," shouted the chorus cheerfully.
Annie came into the drawing-room, her face stiff with importance, and crossed to Mrs. Hammond. Muriel saw her mother leave the room.
"The coffee's overboiled again," she thought, and yet for some reason, she felt stupidly uneasy. She could not put out of her head the thought of that watching figure on the lawn.
Mrs. Hammond did not return. The singers laid aside Gilbert and Sullivan, and took up the Globe Song Book.
"There is a tavern in the town, in the town,
And there my true love sits him down, sits him down,
And takes his cask of wine across his knee
And never, never thinks of me, thinks of me!"