“Why, I declare! Here’s Miss Virginia! How d’y’do? We’ve been talking about you all the afternoon. Well, I really must be going, and I simply won’t listen to any of your persuasions to stay longer. I’ve brightened her up nicely, Miss Virginia; she was looking ever so gloomy when I called. Good-bye, dear. Good-bye, Miss Virginia.”
Exit Miss Quirker.
What we said after she had gone had better not be recorded! My own remarks may not have been quite cordial; but I know that Virginia’s were even worse—if that were possible.
But though visitations such as these, when bestowed upon me at the eleventh hour, always reduce me mentally to a sort of bran-mash (and Virginia says she can’t see why anybody need bother a government to import pulp nowadays, considering the state of her brain, to say nothing of those of other people who shall be nameless), the sight of the garden makes me human once more, and by sunset the silence of the hills has so restored my soul, that the sun seldom, if ever, goes down upon my wrath.
After tea, there will probably be two hours of daylight for watering the garden. Even though the sun has dropped behind the opposite hills, it is light up here on the hill-top long after the valley has gone to sleep; and when the sun has really set, there is a long and lovely twilight.
Indoors and out there is absolute peace. The grandfather’s clock ticks with that slow deliberation that is so soothing; even the preliminary rumble it gives before striking is never irritating—you feel it is a concession due to advanced age.
Through the open window float in the scents of thousands of flowers that are feeling unspeakably grateful for the liberal watering the girls have been giving them; you cannot distinguish any one in particular; one moment you think it is the sweet briar, then you are sure it is the white lilies, then the breeze brings the breath of the honeysuckles that are climbing trees and hedges, till the whole air is laden with perfume.
Up the garden white dresses are seen among the borders.
“There, I believe we’ve done everything but that upper bed of hollyhocks, and they won’t hurt for to-night.” Virginia sounds as though she had been working hard.