A droll idea, truly.  No wonder that the girls laughed at the vanity which Reginald had so innocently betrayed.  “Where did you get your description of his costume?” Aunt Charlotte asked.  She could not help smiling.

“From a painting in my uncle’s hall,” said Reginald, promptly, “and when I told him that I wished that men wore clothes like that now, he just laughed, and said he thought those huge, long-plumed hats would be an awful nuisance.”

The older girls were soon to study English history, and they felt very important indeed.

“We’re bigger than Flossie and Katie and Reginald,” said Jeanette, “so we are to have an extra study.”

“We wouldn’t want what you’re going to have,” Reginald said, “for it’s just horrid.  I told you my brother Bob said it was all full of chopping folks’ heads off, and you didn’t believe it, Jeanette Earl, but you’ll find out it’s so; you see ’f you don’t.”

Flossie slipped her hand into Reginald’s, as if for protection.

“We wouldn’t like to study it,” she said, “and we won’t like to hear it, but we’ll have to when they say their lessons.”

Dorothy and Nancy had been obliged to hurry home from school.  They were to drive with Mrs. Dainty and Aunt Charlotte, and Mrs. Dainty had told them to be prompt.

Flossie and Reginald lingered after the others had gone.  He gathered some blossoming weeds which grew near the cottage, thinking thus to cheer her, and to turn her mind from the hated English history.

She took the flowers, and for a time she laughed and talked so brightly that she seemed her sunny self.

He was just thinking how happy she looked when suddenly she leaned toward him, and said earnestly: 

“Do you s’pose Bob was mistaken?”

Reginald hesitated.  He ardently admired Bob, but he also cared for dear little Flossie, and longed to please her, so after a pause he said: 

“My big brother knows ’most everything, but just p’r’aps he might have been mistaken.”

It was not much comfort, but it was better than if Reginald had insisted that Bob’s knowledge was absolute.

As Mrs. Dainty’s carriage bowled along the avenue, the trees seemed ablaze with autumn splendor, for the leaves that danced in the sunlight were scarlet and gold, and the sunbeams flickered and shimmered like merry elves.  The light breeze tossed the plumes on Dorothy’s hat, and blew her golden curls about her lovely little face.

She leaned back in the carriage and laid her hand in Nancy’s.  Nancy’s fingers were quick to clasp Dorothy’s, and for a time they sat listening to what Mrs. Dainty and Aunt Charlotte Grayson were saying.

Then something made Nancy turn.  A little figure was mincing along the avenue; its shoes had very high heels, its stockings were pink, and its dress a bright green.  A showy hat with many-colored flowers crowned its head, and as the carriage passed it waved a lace handkerchief, thus setting her many bangles tinkling.