Jessie was absorbed by his narration, as her attentiveness and her eager interruptions had shown; but what she said was: "It must be a very occult law indeed." She also emitted a little impertinent laugh, which she did not mean to be impertinent.
Lance was somewhat taken aback. "I dare say it's all foolishness," he admitted; "and there are other elements of interest which are much more obvious."
She was sorry to have brought such confusion upon him, and hastened to revive the conversation.
They got to talking about the negroes; and Lance, alluding to the scene that morning, proceeded to speculate on the problem of the colored race. "There is something very fine in their relation to you," he said, "but it belongs to a phase that has passed away. They ought to be educated, too."
"I'm sure," Jessie answered, "we educate them as much as we can. Didn't you see me give Scip a book? And I've helped to cultivate Aunt Sally's æsthetic tastes by letting her have my pink frock. What more can you ask?"
"You insist upon making fun of me," said Lance, forcing a smile, though a trifle mortified by her lack of enthusiasm. "But you know I'm right."
"Indeed I don't know it!" exclaimed Miss Jessie, vigorously. "You want to change everything, but you can't tell what you would get by the change. You would like to cut down those splendid old trees in the swamp, and turn it into fresh vegetables and berries for New York. But the trees are much nobler than the berries, or even wild-flowers."
"Oh no, I beg your pardon; they're not!" said Lance. "Most of the trees around here are simply monsters. They represent rude, primitive types of vegetation; they are the earliest specimens of Nature's effort to produce flowering plants. Why, the common ox-eye daisy is a far more refined product than they."
"Oh, dear me," cried Jessie, "I never heard that. How much you know! But I like daisies, too; I don't want any of these things destroyed."
"They sha'n't be, then," Lance declared, with offhand omnipotence.