"Oh, yes, indeed, and alas, there are!" exclaimed Julian Adderley, flourishing his emptied tea-cup in the air before setting it back in its saucer and depositing the whole on a table before him; "I am one of them, Miss Vancourt! Pray be merciful to me!"
The absurd attitude of appeal he assumed moved Maryllia to a laugh.
"Well, when you look like that I guess I will!" she said playfully, not without a sense of liking for the quaint human creature who so willingly made himself ridiculous without being conscious of it— "What is your line in the small way?"
"Verse!" he replied, with tragic emphasis—"Verse which nobody reads—verse which nobody wants—verse which whenever it struggles into publication, my erudite friend here, Mr. Longford, batters into pulp with a sledge-hammer review of half-a-dozen lines in the heavier magazines. Verse, my dear Miss Vancourt!—verse written to please myself, though its results do not feed myself. But what matter! I am happy! This village of St. Rest, for example, has exercised a spell of enchantment over me. It has soothed my soul! So much so, that I have taken a cottage in a wood—how melodious that sounds!—at the modest rent of a pound a week. That much I can afford,—that much I will risk—and on the air, the water, the nuts, the berries, the fruits, the flowers, I will live like a primaeval man, and let the baser world go by!" He ran his fingers through his long hair. "It will be an experience! So new—so fresh!"
Miss Tabitha sniffed sarcastically, and gave a short, hard laugh.
"I hope you'll enjoy yourself!" she said tartly—"But you'll soon tire. I told you at once when you said you had decided to spend the summer in this neighbourhood that you'd regret it. You'll find it very dull."
"Oh, I don't think he will!" murmured Maryllia graciously; "He will be writing poetry all the time, you see! Besides, with you and Sir Morton as neighbours, how CAN he feel dull? Won't you have some more tea?"
"No, thank you!" and Miss Pippitt rose,—"Father, we must be going. You have not yet explained to Miss Vancourt the object of our visit."
"True, true!" and Sir Morton got out of his chair with some difficulty—"Time flies fast in such fascinating company!" and he smiled beamingly—"We came, my dear lady, to ask you to dine with us on Thursday next at Badsworth Hall." No words could convey the pomposity which Sir Morton managed to infuse into this simple sentence. To dine at Badsworth was, or ought to be, according to his idea, the utmost height of human bliss and ambition. "We will invite some of our most distinguished neighbours to meet you,—there are a few of the old stock left—" this as if he were of the 'old stock' himself;—"I knew your father—poor fellow!—and of course I remember seeing you as a child, though you don't remember me—ha- ha!—but I shall be delighted to welcome you under my roof—"
"Thanks so much!" said Maryllia, demurely—"But please let it be for another time, will you? I haven't a single evening disengaged between this and the end of June! So sorry! I'll come over to tea some day, with pleasure! I know Badsworth. Dear old place!—quite famous too, once in the bygone days—almost as famous as Abbot's Manor itself. Let me see!" and she looked up at the ceiling musingly—"There was a Badsworth who fought against the Commonwealth,—and there was another who was Prime Minister or something of that kind,—then there was a Sir Thomas Badsworth who wrote books—and another who did some wonderful service for King James the First—yes, and there were some lovely women in the family, too—I suppose their portraits are all there? Yes—I thought so!"—this as Sir Morton nodded a blandly possessive affirmative— "How things change, don't they? Poor old Badsworth! So funny to think you live there! Oh, yes! I'll come over—certainly I'll come over,—some day!"