Now she was fairly in the line of having her own way, Claire was radiant.
"The idea of finding fault with this day!" she taunted laughingly. "Why, I couldn't have made it better, myself!"
"Why don't those birds fly up in the sky, mother?" asked Francie. "What makes 'em fly so low down, right over the water?"
"They are gulls," Mrs. Ronald answered, as if that explained the mystery.
It was a tremendous surprise to find the blue heron a bird instead of "a delicatessen."
For a couple of hours after her first introduction to the new acquaintance Martha kept exclaiming at intervals. "Well, what do you think o' that!" as a sort of gentle indication of her amazement.
"Say, mother, the way the herring walks, it'd make you think o' folks goin' up the church-aisle to get married--steppin' as slow, as slow. Bridesmaids an' things."
"Nothin' interests Cora so much these days, as the loverin' business. She's got it on the brain."
"Dear me! But there are no lovers around here, I'm sure," Claire said, amused.
"Oh, yes, there are. There's you an' Lord Ronald, an' there's Dr. Ballard an' Miss Katherine--an'----"
"Well, mother, it's true. I know he likes her a lot, 'cause----"
"That's enough, Cora. You're too tonguey. Go along an' play with your little brothers an' sisters."
When they were alone Mrs. Ronald turned to Martha. "Is it really true, Martha? Is Dr. Ballard interested in Miss Crewe?"
Mrs. Slawson laughed. "Like that _advertisement_ says the baby's _interested_ in the soap: 'He won't be happy till he gets it!'"
"Certaintly. You couldn't help it. But the little ol' lady has her face set against it. _You_ got such pretty, tackful ways with you--sometime, when you're with the little Madam you might kind o' work around to help the young folks some, if you'd be so good."
Cora came wandering back. The play of the younger children did not divert her. She watched the blue heron as it silently, delicately paced up and down the beach, picking its way among the submerged stones, suddenly darting its head beneath the surface of the water, bringing up a bull-head, perhaps, and swallowing it whole.
"Ain't he perfectly killin'?" she murmured. "The way he acts like he's too dainty to live? And see that yellow flower over there! We had loads and loads of it last fall, and I used to take it to the teacher till one of the girls laughed at me 'cause she said the woods's full o' them, an' besides it gave the teacher _hey?_ fever. That's a joke. It means, it'd make her ask more questions than she does already. Ann Upton said that. Ann is awful smart. Once, when her composition was all marked up with red ink, 'cause the teacher had corrected it so much, Ann said 'she didn't care. It was the pink of perfection.'"