"Good morning," said I. "It is nice to be out gathering flowers on such
a day, but why are you not in school?"
"Why am I not in school?" in a tone of surprise. "Because the holidays
are not over. On Monday we open."
"How delighted you will be."
"Oh no, I don't think I shall be delighted," she returned. Then
I asked her for a flower, and apparently much amused she presented me
with a water forget-me-not, then she sauntered on to a small cottage
close by. Arrived there, she turned round and faced me, her hand on the
gate, and after gazing steadily for some moments exclaimed, "Delighted
at going back to school - who ever heard such a thing?" and, bursting
into a peal of musical child-laughter, she went into the cottage.
One would look for curtseys in the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens as
soon as in the hamlet of this remarkably self-possessed little maid.
Her manner was exceptional; but, if we must lose the curtsey, and the
rural little ones cease to mimic that pretty drooping motion of the
nightingale, the kitty wren, and wheatear, cannot our village pastors
and masters teach them some less startling and offensive form of
salutation than the loud "Hullo!" with which they are accustomed to
greet the stranger within their gates?
