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The solid houses of Elm Park Gardens, with their rich sun-blinds, the perfect sward, the white-frocked girls, the respectful gardeners, the red motor-buses flitting past behind the screen of bushes in the distance, even the butler in his majestic and invulnerable self-conceit the whole systematized scene of correctness and tradition trembled as if perceived through the quivering of hot air.
He saw again he was never quite free from the sight the solemn little white-frocked girl who had died long ago in the Spring. It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely the thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked the table, but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had ceased to be an airy vision and become a sober well-masoned structure.
The yellow-haired, slenderly-made, delicately-featured boy, whose personal pronouns were just developing, and his consonants very scanty, though the elder of the two, dutifully and admiringly obeyed the more distinct, though less connected, utterances of the little dark-eyed girl, eked out by pretty imperious gestures, that seemed already to enchain the little white-frocked cavalier to her service.
"If only Daddy and Mother could have been here," she thought, as she took her place in the long line of white-frocked girls and looked a bit wistfully at the big audience which held the girls' fathers and mothers. But that must be Uncle Tom yes, it was, and Aunt Nell bless them. She wouldn't feel lonely now. And yes there were Tom and Jack.
Throngs of white-frocked girls were chattering about the yard. Rows of Mexican children squatted silent and stolid against the red walls, unmoved by those excitements of closing day which stirred their American mates to riotous glee. The wives of the miners and town merchants were arriving in twos and threes.
With one on each side of her, a retaining hand on the little gaiters, she would wave the attentive husband and father an amiable farewell. The motor car would wheel about in the bare May sunshine, the river would be a ripple of dancing blue waves, morning riders would canter on the bridle- path, and white-frocked babies toddle along the paths. Such a morning for a ride, if only Warren were there!
Suddenly, on the other side of the platform, behind Lord Parham, he noticed that Kitty and Eddie Helston were exchanging signs. Kitty drew out a tablet, wrote upon it, and, leaning over some white-frocked children of the Lord Lieutenant who sat behind her, handed the torn leaf to Helston.
"That's old mare Jenny in the shafts, and her three-year-old daughter in the lead. Ha, Miss Blossom! That's your sort! Knock em sprawling! Teach the Mossoos to handle an English lady!" A tall man ran out of the farmyard, a snow-storm of white-frocked children pursuing him; and even at that distance Parson and boy could hear them screaming laughter. The tall man snatched up one and kissed her.
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