He deeply resented his children’s failure to inherit his brain, but in his inordinate pride of birth, forgave them, for they bore the name of Peele. Hal was his favourite, for she, at least, was bright.
May admired her sister-in-law “to death,” as she phrased it, and bored her with attentions. Patience preferred Honora, who puzzled and repelled her, but assuredly could not be called superficial, although her claims to intellectuality were based upon her preference for George Eliot and George Meredith to the lighter order of fiction, and upon her knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church.
One day, as Patience was crossing the lawn in front of the house, May called to her from the hall, beckoning excitedly. She and Hal and Honora were standing by a table on which was a saucer half full of what appeared to be dead leaves. As Patience entered, May lifted the saucer to her sister-in-law’s nostrils.
“Why? What?” asked Patience, then paused.
“Oh,—what a faint, delicious, far-away perfume,” she said after a moment. “What is it?”
May dropped the saucer and clapped her hands. Hal laughed as if much gratified. Honora’s eyes wandered to the landscape with an absent and introspective regard.
“What is it?” asked Patience again.
“Why, it’s dried strawberry leaves,” said May. “Don’t you know that they say in the South that you can’t perceive their perfume unless every drop of blood in your veins is blue? The common people can’t smell it at all.”
Patience blushed and moved her head disdainfully, but she thrilled with pleasure.
“Won’t you come up and see my room?” said Honora, softly. “You’ve never called on me yet, and I think I have a very pretty room.”