And this went further. Just as boys and men spoilt lessons so they
began to spoil walks. While Hilda attended the Miss Pockets' school
and Rosalie was taught by her mother, it was always her mother with
whom Rosalie took walks. Anna "never cared to go out" and Flora,
whose position in the house was more like that of Harold and Robert,
did much as she liked, and "dragging Rosalie about for walks"
as she expressed it, was not one of the things she liked. Rosalie
therefore went out with her mother until Hilda took her off her
mother's hands, when the taking off included not only education but
exercise. At the beginning, Hilda showed herself as enthusiastic
and as entertaining a walker as she was teacher. She was ready
for jolly scrambles through woods and over fields, she was as keen
as Rosalie on damming little watercourses, and exploring woodland
tracts, and other similar delights, and she had a most splendid
knowledge of the names of plants and flowers and birds and insects
and delighted to tell them to Rosalie. Rosalie had loved the walks
with her mother, always holding her dear hand, but she loved much
more, though in a different way, the walks with Hilda.

Then men began, in Rosalie's private phrase, to "ruin" the walks.

First Flora took to joining the walks and she and Hilda talked and
talked together and always, as it seemed, about men, and Rosalie
just trailed along with them, their heads miles above hers and their
conversation equally out of her reach. But even that was not so bad
as it became. At least there were only her sisters and sometimes
they did talk to her, or sometimes one or other would break off
from their chatter and cry "Oh, poor Rosalie! We've not been taking
the least notice of you, have we? Now, what would you like to do?"