'There's the cleric heading his little boys and their cricket, and there are the tuneful party in the fern on the opposite side. They have rather good voices, unless they gain by distance.'
'And there's a girl botanising by the river.'
'Sentimentalising over forget-me-nots, more likely.'
'My dear Mark, for a specimen of young England, you are greatly behindhand in perception of progress!'
'Ah! you are used to foreigners, Aunt Margaret. You have never fathomed English vulgarity.'
'It would serve you right to send you to carry the invitation to go round the gardens and houses.'
'Do you mean it, aunt?'
'Mean it? Don't you see your uncle advancing down the road—there—accosting the clergyman—what's his name—either Towers or Spires—something ecclesiastical I know. We only waited to reconnoitre and see whether the numbers were unmanageable.'
'And yet he does not want to sit for Micklethwayte?'
'So you think no one can be neighbourly except for electioneering! O Mark, I must take you in hand.'