Mr. Brett was driving the car with me beside him, while the chauffeur sat behind, and I made some such remark to him before I stopped to remember that his relatives were farm people. I could have bitten my tongue then, but he didn't seem to be offended.
"Outside the towns in the West there are few of what you would call gentlefolk," said he, with just the faintest emphasis of good-natured scorn for English prejudice; "nor are there any 'country houses' as you understand the name in England. Here people live in the country to till the land and to live by tilling it; yet they don't call themselves 'peasants,' either. It isn't that they're snobbish and want to seem to be what they are not, don't think that for a moment. But they--well, I won't try to describe them. Many people from the Old World would never understand what they really are, or their point of view; but you will, Lady Betty. You are quick, and sympathetic, and intelligent; and when I ask you to define for me the difference between the farmers of Ohio, as typified by my cousins and their neighbours in Summer County, I shall be surprised if you don't exactly hit the nail on the head. They'll surprise you a little at first, I warn you, and for about ten minutes maybe you won't know what to make of them. But I count on you to see the point in spite of all your traditions."
"What have my traditions got to do with it?" I asked.
"Wait and see."
I laughed. "Well, I only wish I knew what my traditions are," said I. "I suppose I ought to know, but I don't think I do."
"You may feel them prickling up and down your spine for a bit, while you're getting used to a new order of things at the Valley Farm," answered Mr. Brett. "And yet I don't know. I shall be enormously interested in watching the effect upon you, before I--have to say good-bye."
I forgot everything else he had been saying when I heard that last sentence.
"Will you have to say good-bye soon?" I asked in a crestfallen voice.
He didn't speak for a minute, perhaps on account of a series of bumps in the road which, though so pretty, was much worse for driving than any I have seen at home. I don't believe Englishmen would stand it. They would keep writing to The Times and signing their letters "Motorist," or "Sportsman," or "Mother of Ten Cyclists," till somebody was forced to do something.
At last he said, "To tell you the truth, Lady Betty, I should like to stop and pay my cousins a little visit, but--I don't know if I have a right to."