"Not unkindly, auntie," cried Denis, swinging affectionately upon my arm; "we only just tried to make their tails go straight, you know. And, Mr. Lyndsay, there is such a dear little baby calf."
"But I want to give apples to the horses," cried Harold.
So we went to the fruit-house for apples, which Mrs. Mostyn herself selected from an upper shelf, mounting a ladder with equal agility and grace; then to the stables, where these dainties were crunched by two very fat carriage-horses; then to the miniature farm-yard, and the tiny ivy-covered dairy beyond; and just as I was beginning to feel the first qualms of my besetting humiliation, fatigue, Mrs. Mostyn led us round to the garden—a garden with high red walls, and a dial in the meeting-place of the flower-bordered paths; and we sat down in a rustic seat cosily fitted into one sunny corner, just behind a great bed of hyacinths in flower.
The children had but one regret: Tip had been left behind.
"But mamma would not let us bring him," cried Harold in an aggrieved tone, "because he will roll in the flower-beds."
"Do you think it is nearly half-past four, Aunt Eleanour?" asked Denis.
"Very nearly, I should think. Suppose you were to go and see if they have brought the tea-kettle in; and if they have, call to me from the drawing-room window, and I will come."
The tempered sunlight fell full upon the delicate hyacinth clusters—coral, snow-white, and faintest lilac—exhaling their exquisite odour, and the warm sweet air seemed to enwrap us tenderly. My spirits, heavy as lead, began to rise—strangely, irrationally. Sunlight has always for me a supersensuous beauty, while the colour and perfume of flowers move me as sound vibrations move the musician. Just then it was to me as if through Nature, from that which is behind Nature, there reached me a pitying, a comforting caress.
And in the same key were Mrs. Mostyn's words when she next spoke.
"Mr. Lyndsay, I am an old woman and you are very young, and my heart goes out to all young creatures in sorrow, especially to one who has no mother of his own, no, nor father even, to comfort him. I know what trouble you have had. Would you be offended if I said how deeply I felt for you?"