“You look like—I don't know quite what you look like, Betty!” she exclaimed.
The girl's dimple deepened and her eyes said smiling things.
“It is the morning—and your gardens,” she answered. “I have been round your gardens.”
“They were beautiful once, I suppose,” said Rosy deprecatingly.
“They are beautiful now. There is nothing like them in America at least.”
“I don't remember any gardens in America,” Lady Anstruthers owned reluctantly, “but everything seemed so cheerful and well cared for and—and new. Don't laugh, Betty. I have begun to like new things. You would if you had watched old ones tumbling to pieces for twelve years.”
“They ought not to be allowed to tumble to pieces,” said Betty. She added her next words with simple directness. She could only discover how any advancing steps would be taken by taking them. “Why do you allow them to do it?”
Lady Anstruthers looked away, but as she looked her eyes passed Ughtred's.
“I!” she said. “There are so many other things to do. It would cost so much—such an enormity to keep it all in order.”
“But it ought to be done—for Ughtred's sake.”