All this for those delightful summer days when there are fine
intervals; but consider the advantages of the pond when the rain
streams down in torrents from morning till night. How tired we
get of being indoors on these days, even with the best of books,
the pleasantest of companions, the easiest of billiard tables.
Yet if our hostess were to see us marching out with an umbrella,
how odd she would think us. "Where are you off to?" she would
ask, and we could only answer lamely, "Er--I was just going to--
er--walk about a bit." But now we tell her brightly, "I'm going
to see the pond. It must be nearly full. Won't you come too?" And
with any luck she comes. And you know, it even reconciles us a
little to these streaming days to reflect that it all goes to
fill the pond. For there is ever before our minds that great
moment in the future when the pond is at last full. What will
happen then? Aldenham may know, but we his guests do not. Some
think there will be merely a flood over the surrounding paths and
the kitchen garden, but for myself I believe that we are promised
something much bigger than that. A man with such a broad and
friendly outlook towards rain-gauges will be sure to arrange
something striking when the great moment arrives. Some sort of
fete will help to celebrate it, I have no doubt; with an open-air
play, tank drama, or what not.
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