Well, then we young ones--that is, Charlie, and Sylvia, and Armyn,
and I--drank tea out on the lawn. Mary had to sit up and be company;
but we had such fun! There was a great old laurel tree, and Armyn
put Sylvia and me up into the fork; and that was our nest, and we
were birds, and he fed us with strawberries; and we pretended to be
learning to fly, and stood up flapping our frocks and squeaking, and
Charlie came under and danced the branches about. We didn't like
that; and Armyn said it was a shame, and hunted him away, racing all
round the garden; and we scrambled down by ourselves, and came down
on the slope. It is a long green slope, right down to the river, all
smooth and turfy, you know; and I was standing at the top, when
Charlie comes slyly, and saying he would help the little bird to fly,
gave me one push, and down I went, roll, roll, tumble, tumble, till
Sylvia REALLY thought she heard my neck crack! Wasn't it fun?"

"But the river, my dear!" said Lady Jane, shuddering.

"Oh! there was a good flat place before we came to the river, and I
stopped long before that! So then, as we had been the birds of the
air, we thought we would be the fishes of the sea; and it was nice
and shallow, with dear little caddises and river cray-fish, and great
British pearl-shells at the bottom. So we took off our shoes and
stockings, and Charlie and Armyn turned up their trousers, and we had
such a nice paddling. I really thought I should have got a British
pearl then; and you know there were some in the breast-plate of
Venus."

"In the river! Did your cousin allow that?"

"Oh yes; we had on our old blue checks; and Mary never minds anything