"Papa adores Mrs. Webb, so he thinks Dudley splendid," she said.
"That lady is one of the noblest of her sex," loyally asserted the general.
"And one of the most trying of either sex," added his daughter. "When I came home my last holiday, she asked me what I learned at school, and I danced a skirt dance for her."
"I always told you you spoiled Eugie to death, Tom," said Miss Chris in justification of her own responsibility. "In my day no young lady knew what a skirt dance was."
"But that's what I learned at school," protested Eugenia.
The general, feeling that the conversation excluded Nicholas, renewed his attack.
"What do you think of raising garden products?" he inquired affably. Then Eugenia rose, and he submissively retired.
"We aren't going to talk farming any more," said the girl. "Nick and I are going into the garden for roses," and she descended the steps, followed by Nicholas, who was beginning for the first time to breathe freely.
"Tell your father to look into the truck-growing," was the general's parting shot.
The garden was flushed with the riot of autumn. Over the little whitewashed fence double rows of hollyhocks and sunflowers nodded their heavy heads, and bordering the narrow walk were lines of chrysanthemums and dahlias. October roses, the richest of the year, bloomed and dropped in the quaint old squares where the long vegetable rows began. At the end of the straight, overgrown walk the hop vines on the fence threw out a pungent odour.