"Mine?" she said. "Why, it was just the same as your own. That you were as wise and great as any of them——"
"Ah, I didn't say that."
"—And that when you are a Minister of State, and I threw open my drawing-room, we will challenge comparison with any other house in London. Do you like the idea?"
He put his arm round her and kissed her very fondly. She had assimilated his ambitions to a remarkable degree, and he was as surprised as he was delighted to find her almost as eager for his success as he himself could be. The two were by no means destitute of that community of interests and pursuits which has been said to constitute the best hope of wedded bliss. But Nan's hopes were less material than Sydney's. It was as yet a doubtful matter whether he would draw her down from her high standard, or whether she would succeed in raising him to hers. At present, satisfied with themselves and with each other, they were a thoroughly happy couple.
CHAPTER XXXII.
AT MRS. CHIGWIN'S COTTAGE.
Birchmead in the summer and autumn is a very different place from the Birchmead which Alan Walcott saw when he came down to visit his aunt in the early days of February. Then the year had not begun to move; at most there was a crocus or a snowdrop in the sheltered corners of Mrs. Chigwin's garden; and, if it had not been for a wealth of holly round the borders of the village green, the whole place would have been destitute of color.
But, in the summer, all is color and brightness. The blue sky, the emerald lawns, the dull red earth, the many-hued masses of foliage, from the dark copper beech to the light greys of the limes and poplars, mingle their broad effects upon their outspread canvas of Nature, and in the foreground a thousand flowers glow warmly from the well-kept gardens or the fertile meadow-side. Nowhere do the old-fashioned flowers of the field and garden seem to flourish more luxuriantly than at Birchmead, or come to fuller bloom, or linger for a longer season. Here, as elsewhere in the south of England, June and July are the richest months for profusion and color; but the two months that follow July may be made, with very little trouble, as gay and varied in their garden-show, if not so fragrant and exquisite. The glory of the roses and lilies has departed, but in their place is much to compensate all simple and unsophisticated lovers of their mother-earth.
In the second week of October, Mrs. Chigwin was at work in her garden, with her dress tucked up, a basket in her left hand, and a large pair of scissors in her right. Every flower that had begun to fade, every withered leaf and overgrown shoot fell before those fatal shears, and was caught in the all-devouring basket; and from time to time she bore a fresh load of snippets to their last resting-place. Her heart was in her work, and she would not rest until she had completed her round. From the clematis on the cottage wall and the jessamine over the porch she passed to a clump of variegated hollyhocks, and from them to the hedge of sweet peas, to the fuchsias almost as high as the peas, the purple and white phlox, the yellow evening primrose, and the many-colored asters. Stooping here and there, she carefully trimmed the rank-growing geraniums and the clusters of chrysanthemums, cut off the straggling branches of the mignonette and removed every passing bloom of harebell, heartsease, and heliotrope.