“Won’t you introduce me?” said Clara’s voice, somewhat high-strained and mincing, at that moment.
“Oh, I beg your pardon. Angela, this is Miss Carter, Miss Clara Carter.”
Angela turned. There was no false pride about her.
“You live at Court Prospect?” she said, “our old place. How do you do? I hope you like it.”
“Very much indeed,” said Clara, stammering in her eagerness. “It is a lovely place. We have, I think—and we’d be proud to show it to you—improved the place immensely.”
“Improved it?” said Angela. “The cedar avenue, and the beech avenue, and the old Elizabethan garden?”
“We have altered the garden a good deal—I hope you don’t mind. You know, it was very confined and old-fashioned, with its prim box hedges, and those quaint things that looked like animals cut out in box at each corner.”
“And the sundial—you haven’t destroyed that, have you!”
“If you mean that queer stone in the centre—well, yes, we have turned the whole garden into a tennis lawn. It is so delightful. If you could only come and see it.”
“Some day, perhaps. Thank you very much.” Angela turned again, to Marcia.