“Don’t you believe it, Mr Leslie,” cried Madelaine, with a long earnest look in her eyes.
“Quite true, Miss Impudence,” continued Uncle Luke. “Always was a war between me and the useless plants.”
“Well, I can’t sit here silent and listen to such heresy,” cried Mrs Van Heldre, shaking her head. “Surely, Luke Vine, you don’t call yourself a useful plant.”
“Bless my soul, ma’am, then I suppose I’m a weed?”
“Not you,” said Van Heldre, forcing a show of interest in the conversation.
“Yes, old fellow, I am,” said Uncle Luke, holding his sherry up to the light, and sipping it as if he found real enjoyment therein. “I suppose I am only a weed, not a thistle, like Margaret up yonder, but a tough-rooted, stringy, matter-of-fact old nettle, who comes up quietly in his own corner, and injures no one so long as people let him alone.”
“No, no, no, no!” said Madelaine emphatically.
“Quite right, Miss Van Heldre,” said Leslie.
“Hear, hear!” cried Van Heldre. “Stir me up, then, and see,” cried the old man grimly. “More than one person has found out before now how I can sting, and—Hallo! what’s wrong? You here?”
There had been a quick step in the long passage, and, without ceremony, the door was thrown open, Harry Vine entering, to stand in the gathering gloom hatless and excited.