Charlotte was enraptured by the idea that this was to be her
home for the next fortnight.
"I wish it could be for ever, Di," she said, as the two girls were
inspecting the rustic, dimity-draperied, lavender-and-rose-leaf-perfumed
bedchambers. "Who would wish to go back to prim suburban Bayswater after
this? Valentine and I could lodge here after our marriage. It is better
than Wimbledon. Grand thoughts would come to him with the thunder of the
stormy waves; and on calm bright days like this the rippling water would
whisper pretty fancies into his ear. Why, to live here would make any one
a poet. I think I could write a novel myself, if I lived here long
enough."
After this they arranged the pretty sitting-room, and placed an
easy-chair by the window for Charlotte, an arm-chair opposite this for
Mrs. Sheldon, and between the two a little table for the fancy work and
books and flowers, and all the small necessities of feminine existence.
And then--while Mrs. Sheldon prowled about the rooms, and discovered so
many faults and made so many objections as to give evidence of a fine
faculty for invention unsuspected in her hitherto--Charlotte and Diana
explored the garden and peeped at the farmyard, where the friendly cow
still stared over the white gate, just as she had stared when the fly
came to a stop, as if she had not yet recovered from the astonishment
created in her pastoral mind by that phenomenal circumstance.
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