That evening, at the hour of sunset, Maria Dolores met John in the garden.
"You had a visitor this afternoon," she announced. "A most inspiritingly young old lady, as soft and white as a powder-puff, in a carriage that was like a coach-and-four. Lady Blanchemain. She is leaving to-morrow for England. She desired me to give you her farewell blessing."
"It will be doubly precious to me by reason of the medium through which it comes," said John, with his courtliest obeisance.
There was a little pause, during which she looked at the western sky. But presently, "Why did you tell me you had an uncle who was a farmer?" she asked, beginning slowly to pace down the pathway.
"Did I tell you that? I suppose I had a boastful fit upon me," John replied.
"But it very much misled me," said Maria Dolores.
"Oh, it's perfectly true," said John.
"You are the heir to a peerage," said Maria Dolores.
John had a gesture.
"There you are," he said; "and my uncle, the peer, spends much of his time and most of his money breeding sheep and growing turnips. If that isn't a farmer, I should like to know what is."