"I said I should come, Mrs. Ray, if Miss Ray did not make her appearance at the brewery in the morning. We had such a nice party, and of course one wants to talk it over."
"I hope Mrs. Tappitt is quite well after it,—and the girls," said Rachel.
"Oh, yes. You know we kept it up two hours after you were gone. I can't say Mr. Tappitt is quite right this morning."
"Is he ill?" asked Mrs. Ray.
"Well, no; not ill, I think, but I fancy that the party put him out a little. Middle-aged gentlemen don't like to have all their things poked away anywhere. Ladies don't mind it, I fancy."
"Ladies know where to find them, as it is they who do the poking away," said Rachel. "But I'm sorry about Mr. Tappitt."
"I'm sorry, too, for he's a good-natured sort of a man when he's not put out. I say, Mrs. Ray, what a very pretty place you have got here."
"We think so because we're proud of our flowers."
"I do almost all the gardening myself," said Rachel.
"There's nothing I like so much as a garden, only I never can remember the names of the flowers. They've got such grand names down here. When I was a boy, in Warwickshire, they used to have nothing but roses and sweetwilliams. One could remember them."