"And I shall have a nice afternoon. I will make some cakes, I think. I
want to astonish Aunt Lucy and Wilmot when I go home. I shall make Wilmot
let me make Tom's birthday cake."

Pauline patted her cheek. "What a child you are still, Rosie! When you
have been a month or two in London, you will find yourself growing up. But
I must start. How does this dress suit me? Do you think there is just a
little too much yellow about it?"

Rose could frankly say that the dress was perfect. She had never seen
Pauline look better. But she could not help hoping that she had changed
her stockings as she watched her run lightly down the stairs to the
hansom.

She felt very downhearted as she closed the door and went back to the
sitting-room. The room was sweet with the primroses and white violets they
had sent her from Woodcote the day before. Rose felt herself pitying the
flowers for being taken from the woods and sent to wither in that stifling
air. For it was stifling this afternoon. Even when she threw open the
window, no breath of coolness came to fan her burning face. The sky was
cloudless, but yellow with smoke, and a dull haze hung over the river.

Rose thought of Woodcote, where the great chestnuts were already in full
leaf, and the gorse common beyond the wood was a sheet of gold. An intense
longing took hold of her to go home, if only for an hour or two. She
looked at her watch and saw that it was not yet one o'clock. There was
plenty of time to go to Woodcote and get back before Pauline returned. And
how joyfully surprised her aunt would be! She wondered she had not thought
of it before.