Then there were excursions to the Humber woods in search of wild flowers, all new, rare, and delicate,—­too much so to bear the pressure of eager hands, for they seldom survived the transit home.  Often Cecil, Bluebell, Miss Prosody, and the children drove there in a waggonette, with a luncheon-basket, and spent the whole day in the golden woods, or rowing on the Humber river.  Cecil’s craze at this time was to paddle her own canoe; and occasionally Lilla Tremaine, who had become pretty intimate with her, joined the aquatic party.

The Colonel had rather demurred at first, thinking there was a soupcon of fastness and independence in it.  Visions of possible anglers and unchaperoned river flirtations disturbed his mind; but eventually he satisfied himself, by requiring Miss Prosody to be always of the party, who followed with the children and a boatman in a flat-bottomed tub.

On one of these occasions they had been pulling about the beautiful bends of the river.  Cecil, paddling her canoe, with a trolling-line out at the end of it, and Bluebell rowing a boat, while Lilla fished with a very especial spoon-bait of her own devising.  Despite, however, the seductions of the gaudy red cloth and tassel of long hair from a deer’s tail, not a fish impaled itself on the circle of formidable hooks prepared for its reception, and the mid-day sun began to dart fiercely on them.

“All nature speaks of luncheon and repose,” cried Lilla, beginning to wind up her line, after the frequent weed had repeatedly mocked her hopes with its dull, dead pull.  “Let us moor the fleet under this overhanging fir-tree, Cecil; it makes quite a bower.”

“It feels like thunder, the fish don’t bite, and the mosquitoes do,” assented Cecil.  “We must signal for the Infantry, though, who are also the Commissariat.”

Bluebell tied a silk handkerchief to her oar, and waved it wildly.

“I wonder if that old nuisance enjoys herself,” speculated Miss Tremaine, as Miss Prosody’s prim visage appeared in the stern of the other boat.  “So like you English, always carrying your propriety about in the shape of a foil.”

“Don’t abuse our treasure,” said Cecil, demurely.  “Ask papa what he thinks of Miss Prosody.”

“I should get a more impartial opinion from Estelle and Fleda, who are always being kept in and bullied.”

“Well, I really think the other children are enough for to-day,” said Cecil.  “What a fuss Freddy made to get after Bluebell into that tituppy little boat of yours.”

“Yes, and you would all have been beseeching him not to till now, if I had not taken him by the scruff of the neck and dropped him into the other!”

“Well, dear,” said Cecil, languidly; “we don’t all possess your strength of mind and biceps.  What have you got there, Lola?” as the boatman deftly shot the other boat under the overhanging branches.

“Water-lily leaves for plates!  See now stiff and shining they are, and washed up so clean.”