For a minute, Lily regarded her with some sort of compunction, but she was afraid of giving way to her better nature, so merely saying: "Well, I'm sure, ma, there's nothing to cry about," turned on her heel, and left the room.
And the poor mother, who had strained every nerve, in her younger days, to make her only child's life one of cloudless happiness, realised that she and her husband had made a bitter mistake in educating Lily "as a lady," for it was only too evident that she now considered herself immensely superior to her parents; and as for affection for them she had little or none.
There was little talked of at the High School that second week in June but the approaching half-term holiday, and various ways of spending it. Some of the girls, whose homes were at a distance, but who either lived or boarded with friends in Osmington, so as to attend the High School, were looking forward to a week-end at home; while others were going to stay from the Friday to Monday night with relations.
Monica and Olive had discussed several plans for spending the long-looked-forward-to holiday, each of which was delightful in its own way. But eventually, with Mrs. Beauchamp's consent, it was decided that the first part of the day should be spent picnic-fashion, the girls returning to a substantial tea at Carson Rise.
Monica would have preferred having Olive only to spend a long day with her, but Mrs. Beauchamp, who had made the acquaintance of the Franklyn twins, and had taken a great fancy to quiet, nicely behaved Elsa, stipulated that if one sister came, both did; so as Monica said: "To make it all square, let's have Amethyst Drury as well."
Accordingly, on the most perfect of sunny June mornings the quartette having met at a given spot at eleven o'clock made their way to a favourite place in Disbrowe woods, and prepared to enjoy themselves to the full.
The same river which ran past the bottom of the Franklyns' garden, a mile away, flowed through the pretty little copse which enjoyed the above grand cognomen, because it was included in the Disbrowe estate, and the few acres of cherished copse seemed like "woods" in that suburban neighbourhood. It was in this copse that the Osmington people gathered their spring flowers, for the ground was carpeted with primroses during the month of April; and here, too, the boys and girls went nutting in the autumn.