"I'm sorry for the poor old Spanyard, for a fountane like that wouldn't be _anywhere_, so I wish he and his brave men had sailed across the sea and land to hunt for something that he could truly find."
Some faulty spelling, but no error in the loving, tender heart. The pathos of the story had touched her.
Reginald was but a few months older than Flossie, but he was not sensitive, and only the adventure, the beauty described appealed to him. He looked at Flossie in surprise when she had finished reading her little sketch, and wondered that she could see anything pathetic in the tale.
Then he rose to read his own effort at story-telling.
"They tramped and tramped for miles through the trees and swamps, and I'd like to have worn a red velvet coat and hunt for that fountane, for if we hadn't found it we'd have had a jolly hunt. I'd like to have worn a red velvet coat and a big hat with fethers on it, and a pare of boots with big tops to them. We could have tramped better with those big boots and all those fine things on."
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.