"Very well, dear, very well; I'll do it. But it's not decided yet, remember, and one can never be sure. I'd better break the idea to the girls before Aunt Maria comes, and let them get over the first excitement. To-night would be a good opportunity. You will be out late, so would be spared the scene!" "Bless you, Emily! I'm a coward, I know, but I _should_ be grateful. I can't answer for what I should do if Darsie cried, and begged my protection. Women have twice the pluck of men in these affairs!" Nevertheless it was with a quaking heart that Mrs Garnett broached the object of Aunt Maria's proposition over the schoolroom tea that afternoon, and her nervousness was not decreased by the smilingly unperturbed manner in which it was received. Never, never for a moment did it appear possible to the three girls that such a proposition could be seriously discussed. "_So_ likely!" sneered Clemence with a fine disdain. "Give up all the fun and excitement of the sea with the Vernons, to _browse_ with Aunt Maria. _So_ likely, to be sure!" "Poor dear old love! She _is_ deluded. Thinks it would be a pleasure and benefit, does she. I wouldn't take a thousand pounds--" Thus Lavender. Darsie went a step farther in tragic declamation. "I'd drown myself first! To sit there--panting, in hot rooms, on Benger's food, and know that all the others were bathing and running wild on the shore--I'd burst! 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?"