“But you know, Major Clare, we are simple-minded country girls, and we do enjoy picking blackberries. Of course, it can’t be expected that you should feel excitement at anything short of a tiger hunt.”
“You don’t know how much better I like the blackberrying.”
“Have you actually exhausted tiger hunts? Do see if pricking your fingers in that very thorny bramble will afford you a fresh sensation.”
Emberance could talk, and she was very pretty, much prettier, the Major thought, than her heiress-cousin, and her honest desire to behave as a young lady with a secret engagement should, combining with her natural taste for little attentions, gave her a kind of consciousness that was pleasing to him. But it was but a faint and languid satisfaction, and he presently turned away in search of Kate in the hope that her naïveté might afford him a more lively one.
She was picking—and eating—blackberries with all her might, comparing her basket with her companions’, scratching her fingers, and tearing her gown with the most entire enjoyment.
Major Clare was a very lazy picker, but he strolled up to her side, and contributed a few blackberries to her basket, asking her if she found the amusement begin to pall upon her.
“Oh, no!” said Kate. “Besides Mrs Clare wants at least fourteen pounds of jam, she has only got six now, so there are a great many more to gather.”
“Oh, I perceive you look on it from a business point of view.”
“Why! we shouldn’t come to gather blackberries if they were of no use! Of course it’s great fun into the bargain.”
“I am afraid I don’t appreciate the blackberry jam after it is made.”