Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/290

 lay under the trees, but it was the only sign of autumn. Georgie gathered a great basketful of nasturtiums, heliotrope, and mignonette to carry down to Miss Gisborne, and Marian was sent off in the village-cart with a similar basketful for Mrs. Frewen. The house was all in a confusion of packing. Frederic was wrapping tissue-paper round the picture-frames, Elizabeth counting linen and silver, the gardeners emptying the balcony boxes. Mrs. Gray proposed that Gertrude and Candace should go for a last walk on the Cliffs, and so be out of the way of these discomforts.

"There is nothing for you to do," she said. "Only don't stay too late, and come in before it grows dark. We are to have a 'thick tea' at half-past six, in place of a regular dinner. I thought it would be less trouble on this busy day."

It was to Pulpit Rock that the two cousins bent their way. The Cliffs were even lonelier now than they had been when Candace first visited them. There were no bathers in the