"Girls are quite different," said Ishmael firmly; "they talk awful rot; I've heard my sister and Phoebe--that's a girl at home."
"Yes, so does my sister--at least, she talks sort of clever stuff that's as bad. But how about Hilaria?" asked her admirer.
"Well, she's more sensible than most, because she wants to do things as though she weren't a girl, but I don't see how she's going to keep it up. She'll fall in love and then it'll all be over."
"Oh, well ... they're all right, I suppose. I want to do things, and girls want to feel things. Oh, yes, Bunny, they're awfully different."
"From you, perhaps ... I dunno ... I say, d'you really want the old bishop to lay his paws on your head?"
"Well, so does Hilaria. She read me some stuff out of a book--ripping fine stuff it was--by a chap called Mallory. All about knights that were searching for a cup they thought had the blood of God in it or something of the sort. But she seemed to believe it."
"I believe it, too. Not that they lived like that book, but that there is the Blood ... Oh, what's the good of trying to explain to you? It's like you when you're painting and you try and make me see a lot of colours I can't."
"Hullo ... there she comes," cried Killigrew, with a sudden quickening of voice and aspect; "I say, it must be ghastly trying to walk in one of those things. Girls must be different or they wouldn't put up with them. I'll go and help her. Come on, we'll have to sit down below now."
The two boys scrambled down the boulders and assisted Hilaria--the hem of whose white tarlatan skirts showed already the worse for her walk--over the hummocky patch of rocks and gorse that fringed the hollow. Laughing rather ruefully, she flung herself down, scattering her bonnet, shawl, and bag over the turf in the impetuous movement. The lowest rim of the crinoline promptly stood straight up from the ground like a hoop, displaying her long legs and the multitudinous petticoats lying limply upon them, and she was forced to adopt a change of position. Finally she settled herself with her feet tucked in under her and the obnoxious garment swelling out all round, as though she had just flopped down and made what the children call a "cheese."