She is perpetually in the antechamber of death, and her soul is perennially sunshine.—See the pretty cottage under the laburnum curls! Who lives there?'
'His gamekeeper, Simon Rofe.'
'And what a playground for the children, that bit of common by their garden-palings! and the pond, and the blue hills over the furzes. I hope those people will not be turned out.'
Dacier could not tell. He promised to do his best for them.
'But,' said she, 'you are the lord here now.'
'Not likely to be the tenant. Incomes are wanted to support even small estates.'
'The reason is good for courting the income.'
He disliked the remark; and when she said presently:
'Those windmills make the landscape homely,' he rejoined: 'They remind one of our wheeling London gamins round the cab from the station.'
'They remind you,' said she, and smiled at the chance discordant trick he had, remembering occasions when it had crossed her.