"Oh, yes, and we will find a sheltered place under the rocks. My mother and sister always do this when they come up here to lunch with me, for the men's saloon and reading-room are not odoriferous. You won't find it cold, al fresco, such a still day as this."
Nor did they. Their luncheon spread upon the crisp snow, a cloudless sky above them, the sun pouring down on the little amphitheatre of rocks in which Pierce had ensconced the ladies, Mrs. Frampton declared it was an ideal midday dining-room—a combination of Davos-Platz and Cairo—which left nothing to be desired.
Bloxsome, in his coarse, loud way, was amusing; but the instinctive dislike of our English friends seemed to be shared by Alan Brown, between whom and the elder American there was a constant sparring. Grace confessed to herself that the youth's Anglomania must be trying to one of his countryman's boastful temper, but this did not excuse the bad taste of Bloxsome's rejoinders. When Alan described, with boyish enthusiasm, a driving tour he had taken through the north of England, the other said,
"Why do you squirm about English scenery so much? Say, can you find anything in all England to compare with this, I should like to know? Talk of their lakes—why, they're mere ponds; and their rivers—ditches beside ours."
"Size isn't everything," said Alan, scornfully. "The lovely roadside hedges—the beautiful roads themselves—then, the dear old-fashioned inns, the ruined abbeys, the historic castles—what have we got to compare with them? Travelling here is beastly. No wonder Americans travel very little in their own country for pleasure."
Bloxsome gave a coarse laugh. "No, they transact their business at home, and go abroad for amusement. English people amuse themselves at home, and come here to invest their money or pick up heiresses."
Pierce Caldwell blushed, and cut in with some wholly irrelevant remark, talking fast and laughing, in the impotent endeavor to obliterate the effect of this speech. And when Mrs. Caldwell found herself alone with Mrs. Frampton afterwards, she took occasion to say,
"You must please forgive our unmannerly cousin. His education was very much neglected. He is a rough diamond."
Mrs. Frampton said, incisively, "He should be cut."
Mrs. Caldwell, not choosing to understand the équivoque, remarked that the world was the best lapidary in such a case; and John Bloxsome had seen little of any other worlds than those of San Francisco and Pittsburgh.