“There’s the use of telling the truth.”
“Of listening to it,” said Helen.
“We shall get on, I see, Miss Stanley, if you can get over the first bitter outside of me;—a hard outside, difficult to crack—stains delicate fingers, may be,” she continued, as she replaced her drawing in its frame—“stains delicate fingers, may be, in the opening, but a good walnut you will find it, taken with a grain of salt.”
Many a grain seemed necessary, and very strong nut-crackers in very strong hands. Lady Cecilia’s evidently were not strong enough, though she strained hard. Helen did not feel inclined to try.
Cecilia invited Miss Clarendon to walk out and see some of the alterations her brother had made. As they passed the new Italian garden, Miss Clarendon asked, “What’s all this?—don’t like this—how I regret the Old English garden, and the high beech hedges. Every thing is to be changed here, I suppose,—pray do not ask my opinion about any of the alterations.”
“I do not wonder,” said Cecilia, “that you should prefer the old garden, with all your early associations; warm-hearted, amiable people must always be so fond of what they have loved in childhood.”
“I never was here when I was a child, and I am not one of your amiable people.”
“Very true, indeed,” thought Helen.
“Miss Stanley looks at me as if I had seven heads,” said Miss Clarendon, laughing; and, a minute after, overtaking Helen as she walked on, she looked full in her face, and added, “Do acknowledge that you think me a savage.” Helen did not deny it, and from that moment Miss Clarendon looked less savagely upon her: she laughed and said, “I am not quite such a bear as I seem, you’ll find; at least I never hug people to death. My growl is worse than my bite, unless some one should flatter my classical, bearish passion, and offer to feed me with honey, and when I find it all comb and no honey, who would not growl then?”
Lady Cecilia now came up, and pointed out views to which the general had opened. “Yes, it’s well, he has done very well, but pray don’t stand on ceremony with me. I can walk alone, you may leave me to my own cogitations, as I like best.”