I could work all the morning on the roof, with an awning over me to keep off the sun, while Ethelbertha trimmed the roses and made cakes for tea; and in the evenings we would sit out on the little deck, and Ethelbertha would play the guitar (she would begin learning it at once), or we could sit quiet and listen to the nightingales.
For, when you are very, very young you dream that the summer is all sunny days and moonlight nights, that the wind blows always softly from the west, and that roses will thrive anywhere.

But, as you grow older, you grow tired of waiting for the gray sky to break.

So you close the door and come in, and crouch over the fire, wondering why the winds blow ever from the east: and you have given up trying to rear roses.
I knew a little cottage girl who saved up her money for months and months so as to buy a new frock in which to go to a flower-show.

But the day of the flower-show was a wet day, so she wore an old frock instead.

And all the fete days for quite a long while were wet days, and she feared she would never have a chance of wearing her pretty white dress.