"No, but I really think——"
"Don't think," says Molly: "it is too fatiguing; and if you get used up now, I don't see what Letitia will do for her jam."
"Why do people make jam?" asks Luttrell, despairingly; "they wouldn't if they had the picking of it: and nobody ever eats it, do they?"
"Yes, I do. I love it. Let that thought cheer you on to victory. Oh! here is another fat one, such a monster. Open your mouth again, wide, and you shall have it, because you really do begin to look weak."
They are sitting on the strawberry bank, close together, with a small square basket between them, and the pretty red and white fruit hanging from its dainty stalks all round them.
Molly, in a huge hat that only partially conceals her face and throws a shadow over her glorious eyes, is intent upon her task, while Luttrell, sitting opposite to her, holds over her head the very largest family umbrella ever built. It is evidently an old and esteemed friend, that has worn itself out in the Massereenes' service, and now shows daylight here and there through its covering where it should not. A troublesome scorching ray comes through one of these impromptu air-holes and alights persistently on his face; at present it is on his nose, and makes that feature appear a good degree larger than Nature, who has been very generous to it, ever intended.
It might strike a keen observer that Mr. Luttrell doesn't like the umbrella; either it or the wicked sunbeams, or the heat generally, is telling on him, slowly but surely; he has a depressed and melancholy air.
"Is it good?" asks Molly, à propos of the strawberry. "There, you need not bite my finger. Will you have another? You really do look very badly. You don't think you are going to faint, do you?"
"Molly," taking no notice of her graceful badinage, "why don't you get your grandfather to invite you to Herst Royal for the autumn? Could you not manage it in some way? I wish it could be done."
"So do I," returns she, frankly, "but there is not the remotest chance of it. It would be quite as likely that the skies should fall. Why, he does not even acknowledge me as a member of the family."