“Miss Seldom has been trying to make me appreciate the beauty of these orchards,” went on Mr. Taxater, addressing James. “But I am afraid I am not very easily converted. I have a prejudice against orchards. For some reason or other, I associate them with dragons and serpents.”
“Miss Seldom has every reason to love the beautiful aspects of our Nevilton scenery,” said the stone-carver. “Her ancestors possessed all these fields and orchards so long, that it would be strange if their descendant did not have an instinctive passion for them.” He uttered these words with that curious undertone of bitterness which marked all his references to aristocratic pretension.
Little Vennie brushed the sarcasm gently aside, as if it had been a fluttering moth.
“Yes, I do love them in a sense,” she said, “but you must remember that I, too, was educated in a Latin country. So, you see, we four are all outsiders and heretics! I fancy your brother, Mr. Andersen, is an ingrained Neviltonian.”
James smiled in a kindly, almost paternal manner, at the little descendant of the Tudor courtiers. Her sweetness and artless goodness made him feel ashamed of his furtive truculence.
“I wish you would come in and see my mother and me, one of these evenings,” said Vennie, looking rather wistfully at Lacrima and putting a more tender solicitation into her tone than the mere words implied.
Lacrima hesitated. “I am afraid I cannot promise,” she said nervously. “My cousin generally wants me in the evening.”
“Perhaps,” put in Mr. Taxater, with his most Talleyrand-like air, “a similar occasion to the present one may arise again, when with Mr. Andersen’s permission, we may all adjourn to the vicarage garden.”
Lacrima, rather uncomfortably, looked down at the grass.