Miss Du Plessis and
the dominie would have done well, had not the worship of nature and
human nature, in prose and in verse, withheld their hands from labour,
and fortunately, as Mr. Perrowne remarked, from picking and stealing.
Mr. Douglas was absorbed in admiration for Miss Graves, who, thinking
nothing of the handsome picture she made, attended strictly to business,
and roused him to emulation in basket filling. Marjorie, with her
oft-replenished tin can, aided them time about impartially, as the only
honest workers worthy of recognition. Steadily, they toiled away, until
the rising sun and shortening shadows, to say nothing of stooped backs
and flushed faces, warned them to cease their labours, and prepare to
take their treasures home. Then they compared baskets, to the exultation
of some and the confusion of others. Miss Graves and Mr. Douglas were
bracketed first with a good six quarts a piece. Miss Halbert came next,
with Mr. Perrowne a little behind. Miss Du Plessis and Mr. Wilkinson had
not six quarts between them; and, when Marjorie saw the colonel's
little pail only half full, she exclaimed: "O horrows!" and said it was
a lasting disgrace.
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