The sun was quite hot, and Mrs. Brereton at once put up her parasol, for a large glass screen sheltered them from the wind.
"Delicious the sun is," she said, as she extinguished it. "And what a delightful drive we shall have, Maud! When one goes into the country like this, I can never understand why we ever live in town. So sensible of dear Nellie, is it not? She has bought a cottage in the country, with an orchard and a dairy and all that, and dreams of butter, she tells me. She probably wakes and finds that it is earwigs. That she doesn't tell me."
"I don't think she would care about it if she couldn't tell every one about it," said Maud. "She doesn't strike me as a real country-lover, does she you?"
"Oh, I dare say not in the sense you are, dear," said her mother. "I always wonder where you get it from. Fancy your father or I existing in the country!"
"But you said this moment that you couldn't understand why we ever live in town."
This was the kind of thing which frequently occurred when Mrs. Brereton chattered to her daughter. Maud seemed to think that in light conversation people meant what they said, an error so astounding that it seemed almost hopeless to point it out.
"Dear Maud, how literal you are!" she said. "You don't seem to realize that one has moods which may last a year or more, and may only last a minute. That one lasted less than a minute."
Maud laughed.
"How unsettling!" she said. "For how can one know whether one really likes anything? It may only last a minute."
Mrs. Brereton plunged at the opening, a header, so to speak, into the frothy water.