After lunch Mr. Judson called again. He was passing, he explained, on his round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually. Mr. Worcester also came; his really was a casual stop, I think. He and his brother curate were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an apparent reluctance on the part of each to leave before the other. They left together, but Mr. Judson again hinted at the promised golf game, and Mr. Worcester, having learned from Miss Morley that she played and sang, expressed great interest in music and begged permission to bring some “favorite songs,” which he felt sure Miss Morley might like to run over.
Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both the clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she said, and the songs she was certain would be jolly. Hephzy and I had very little to say, and no one seemed particularly anxious to hear that little.
The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor Bayliss and his son strolled in from next door. Doctor Bayliss, Senior, was much pleased to find his patient up and about, and Herbert, the son, even more pleased to find her at all, I judge. Young Bayliss was evidently very favorably impressed with his new neighbor. He was a big, healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-up boy, whose laugh was a pleasure to hear, and who possessed the faculty, envied by me, the quahaug, of chatting entertainingly on all subjects from tennis and the new American dances to Lloyd-George and old-age pensions. Frances declared a strong aversion to the dances, principally because they were American, I suspected.
Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
“What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?” he asked.
“I should say,” I answered, “that, so far as they are understood in America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here.”
“Really! But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as we have, you know.”
“We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our political parties are not so named.”
“We call 'em Republicans and Democrats,” explained Hephzy. “Hosy is a Republican,” she added, proudly.
“I am not certain what I am,” I observed. “I have voted a split ticket of late.”