t! I'd run away in an hour--"

"Dears, it's a beautiful old place. There are gardens, and lawns, and
horses, and dogs. Cows, too! I am sure there are cows--she used to
keep a herd of Jerseys. You could see them being milked."

"Welsh cows are good enough for me. I don't need Jerseys. _Or_ lawns!
Give me the free, untrammelled countryside!

"`And to see it reflected in eyes that I love.'"

Darsie paraphrased a line of the sweet old ballad, singing it in a
clear, bell-like voice to a pantomime of clasped hands and rolling eyes.
"It would be bad enough in an ordinary year, but to rend us apart from
the Vernons--oh, no, it's unthinkable!"

"You have the Vernons near you all the year, dear. Aunt Maria only asks
for eight weeks. There are occasions in life when it does not do to
think only of our own pleasure."

Silence. A note in the mother's voice had startled her hearers into the
conviction that the invitation must be regarded seriously, and not
tossed aside as a joke. A lacerating suspicion that the authorities
were in favour of an acceptance pierced like a dart.

"Mother! What do you mean? You couldn't _possibly_ be so cruel--"

"Mother, you don't mean--."

"Mother, what _do_ you mean?"

"I mean that you ought to go, dears, which ever one of you is asked.
Aunt Maria is an old lady, and she is lonely. Her doctor has ordered
cheerful companionship. Moreover, she has been a kind friend to father
in the past, and has a right to expect some consideration in return. If
you went in the right spirit, you could be of real use and comfort, and
would have the satisfaction of doing a kind deed."

Darsie set her lips in a straight line, and tilted her chin in the air.

"Couldn't pretend to go in the right spirit! I'd be in a tearing rage.
Somebody else can have the `satisfaction,' and I'll go to the sea."

"Darsie, dear, that's naughty!"

"I _feel_ naughty, mother. `Naughty' is a mild word. _Savage_! I feel
savage. It's too appalling. What does father say? I'm sure he would
never--"

"Father feels as I do; very disappointed for our own sakes and for yours
that our happy party should be disturbed, but he never shirks a
disagreeable duty himself, and he expects his children to follow his
example."

Lavender instantly burst into tears.

"It's always the way--always the way! It was too good to be true. We
might have known that it was. She'll choose me, and Hannah will go
without me. We'd pl