CHAPTER XIX
WE INHERIT A FORTUNE
I have done with sadness forever.
Who could be sad on an afternoon such as this? Is the witchery of spring with us once more? we ask; for it has rained for a week, and now every faded green thing—leaf and grass and hedges—are chortling with pride over their fresh, bright raiment. They are as maidens of fifteen mincing in their new frocks.
The roses are holding up their heads and inviting you to bury your face in the heart of their sweetness where some raindrops still remain. You gladly do as you are bidden, and Amelia, who has brought them to you, thinks you are an eccentric creature to go sighing and sniffing and kissing their wet petals in such sentimental fashion.
"The sweetest flower that blows," you sing, and she says they are nothing of the kind, that "vi'lets take the cake."
"The master will be home at half-past four," you tell her, and she says you have mentioned this fact at least half a dozen times.
"Only twice, Amelia," I say. "You should learn to speak the truth." And she steps deliberately on to the tortoise, which lies on the grass, in order to teach me that I may allow it to stray once too often. I tell her I am sorry, and she suggests that I should tie it round my neck suspended from a ribbon, and people might take it for an enlarged miniature of one of my relations.
I ignore her remark, and watch a thrush who is having a succulent feast of worms after the rain. I wonder at the worms being so easily deceived as to imagine that the stamping of the thrush's small feet is an earthquake, bringing them out of their burrows with a run.