The girls picked up their skirts and threw up their legs so that their
garters, made of blue and red braid such as the grocers sell for tying
up pots, were plainly visible, and whenever the cavalier caught his
lady, he took her in his arms and swung her round so that her skirts
flew; and young and old shrieked so with laughter that the park
re-echoed.
"Is this innocence or corruption?" wondered the schoolmaster.
But evidently the party did not know what the learned word "corruption"
meant, and that was the reason why they were so merry.
By the time they were tired of playing "Third Man" tea was ready. The
schoolmaster was puzzled to know where the cavaliers had learnt their
fine manners, for they moved about on all fours to offer the girls
sugar and cake; and the straps of their waistcoats stood out like
handles.
"The males showing off before the females!" thought the schoolmaster.
"They don't know what they are in for."
He noticed how the head of the family, the jolly fellow, waited on
father and mother-in-law, wife, shop-assistants and servant girls: and
whenever one of them begged him to help himself first, he invariably
answered that there was plenty of time for that.
He watched the father-in-law peeling a willow branch to make a flute
for the little boy; he watched the mother-in-law wash up as if she had
been one of the servants.
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