"Well, let us walk around the paths, and we can talk better," suggests the 'old goose,' persuasively.
"He asked me over so nicely, to come and go in his beautiful house and grounds, and make myself at home there. Ah, I felt like hugging the old dear." Mr. Glen pokes the grass thoughtfully with his cane.
"Indeed," he says drily. "It is a pity you could not expend your surplus affection on a younger man."
Zoe stops short in her walk. "You are very impolite, to say the very least; in fact I am rather surprised at you," the youngest Miss Litchfield says loftily. The wind blows in chilly gusts, suggestive of rain; it is very cold for a night in August.
"Shall I run in and fetch a shawl for you?" Jet asks in a protective sort of way.
"No thanks, I shall never accept any service from your hands sir, or in fact from any one who would dare speak disrespectfully of my friends."
But Zoe forgot the old but true proverb about "pride having a fall." Suddenly the young lady seems to be seized with a panic of despair.
"Oh! oh! oh!" she cries, in frantic tones.
"What in the name of the stars is the matter now?" inquires the young man, looking about him to the right and left.
"Oh, kill it; kill it, quick." White dresses are a great magnetiser for June bugs; caught in the lace of her sleeve is an immense—as Zoe calls it—'horny bug.'