But it's worth it. I had no idea that the world was so
beautiful. There is a light you never see at any other time, and the
whole air seems to be full of fluttering song. You feel--but you
must get up and come out with me, Dad. I can't describe it. If it
hadn't been for the good old cow, Lord knows what time I'd have been
up. The clock went off at half-past four in the afternoon, just as
they were sitting down to tea, and frightened them all out of their
skins. We have fiddled about with it all we know, but there's no
getting it to do anything between six p.m. and six am. Anything you
want of it in the daytime it is quite agreeable to. But it seems to
have fixed its own working hours, and isn't going to be bustled out
of its proper rest. I got so mad with it myself I wanted to pitch it
out of the window, but Robin thought we ought to keep it till you
came, that perhaps you might be able to do something with it--writing
something about it, she means. I said I thought alarm clocks were
pretty well played out by this time; but, as she says, there is
always a new generation coming along to whom almost everything must
be fresh. Anyhow, the confounded thing cost seven and six, and seems
to be no good for anything else.
"Whatever was it that you really did say to Robin about her room?
Young Bute came round to me on Monday quite upset about it. He says
it is going to be all windows, and will look, when finished, like an
incorrect copy of the Eddystone lighthouse.
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