“Bless her heart! She pities him, so she is good to him,” said Jo, beaming at her from the croquet ground.
“I always said she was a little saint,” added Meg, as if there could be no further doubt of it.
“I haven’t heard Frank laugh so much for ever so long,” said Grace to Amy, as they sat discussing dolls and making tea sets out of the acorn cups.
“My sister Beth is a very fastidious girl, when she likes to be,” said Amy, well pleased at Beth’s success. She meant `fascinating’, but as Grace didn’t know the exact meaning of either word, fastidious sounded well and made a good impression.
An impromptu circus, fox and geese, and an amicable game of croquet finished the afternoon. At sunset the tent was struck, hampers packed, wickets pulled up, boats loaded, and the whole party floated down the river, singing at the tops of their voices. Ned, getting sentimental, warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain . . .
Alone, alone, ah! Woe, alone,
and at the lines . . .
We each are young, we each have a heart, Oh, why should we stand thus coldly apart?
he looked at Meg with such a lackadaisical expression that she laughed outright and spoiled his song.
“How can you be so cruel to me?” he whispered, under cover of a lively chorus. “You’ve kept close to that starched-up Englishwoman all day, and now you snub me.”
“I didn’t mean to, but you looked so funny I really couldn’t help it,” replied Meg, passing over the first part of his reproach, for it was quite true that she had shunned him, remembering the Moffat party and the talk after it.
Ned was offended and turned to Sallie for consolation, saying to her rather pettishly, “There isn’t a bit of flirt in that girl, is there?”
“Not a particle, but she’s a dear,” returned Sallie, defending her friend even while confessing her shortcomings.
“She’s not a stricken deer anyway,” said Ned, trying to be witty, and succeeding as well as very young gentlemen usually do.
On the lawn where it had gathered, the little party separated with cordial good nights and good-bys, for the Vaughns were going to Canada. As the four sisters went home through the garden, Miss Kate looked after them, saying, without the patronizing tone in her voice, “In spite of their demonstrative manners, American girls are very nice when one knows them.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Mr. Brooke.
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“Chapter” I.13
Castles in the Air
Laurie lay luxuriously swinging to and fro in his hammock one warm September afternoon, wondering what his neighbors were about, but too lazy to go and find out. He was in one of his moods, for the day had been both unprofitable and unsatisfactory, and he was wishing he could live it over again. The hot weather made him indolent, and he had shirked his studies, tried Mr. Brooke’s patience to the utmost, displeased his grandfather by practicing half the afternoon, frightened the maidservants half out of their wits by mischievously hinting that one of his dogs was going mad, and, after high words with the stableman about some fancied neglect of his horse, he had flung himself into his hammock to fume over the stupidity of the world in general, till the peace of the lovely day quieted him in spite of himself. Staring up into the green gloom of the horse-chestnut trees above him, he dreamed dreams of all sorts, and was just imagining himself tossing on the ocean in a voyage round the world, when the sound of voices brought him ashore in a flash. Peeping through the meshes of the hammock, he saw the Marches coming out, as if bound on some expedition.
“What in the world are those girls about now?” thought Laurie, opening his sleepy eyes to take a good look, for there was something rather peculiar in the appearance of his neighbors. Each wore a large, flapping hat, a brown linen pouch slung over one shoulder, and carried a long staff. Meg had a cushion, Jo a book, Beth a basket, and Amy a portfolio. All walked quietly through the garden, out at the little back gate, and began to climb the hill that lay between the house and river.