Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with the
fragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was full
of bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, as
if there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the great
sunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings
"came," and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, like
a flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of course
one had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off like
a bird or a bee right after breakfast,--that was living; that was the
Irishman's blessing,--'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'"

"Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the most
magnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what there
would be to give them all if they did, as they came round under the
piazza basement, and up to the front portico.

They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs.
Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner.

Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azalea
branches, and looking "awfully pretty," as Dakie Thayne said
afterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of.

The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in a
hurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't got
the table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead of
parallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrors
which she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent.