Alice looked vaguely interested. It seemed to her that she was hearing the prologue of a novel. She did not draw any moral from it, or ask herself whether her own brothers and sisters might ever be dispersed like this about the world; but she wanted to hear more.
“Have the others no children?” she asked.
“Dozens, my dear,” said Mrs. Lenny, “here, and there, and everywhere. I’ve nephews in the service in every country under the sun, and nieces, all married in the army; it runs in our blood. But Gussy’s boy is the one I think of most. He’s not a boy now. He’s five-and-thirty if he’s a day, and my brother is dead that adopted him, and the property has gone from bad to worse, and I don’t know what is to be done. Lenny’s head is full of him. Perhaps if I were to speak a good word to your papa——”
“Could papa help him?” cried Alice, eagerly; “then you may be sure, quite sure, that he will do it. I will speak to him myself. They all say he always listens to me.”
“Will you?” said Mrs. Lenny. She grasped suddenly at the firm little hand in which Alice held the reins, and put down her head as if to kiss it, then looked up with a nervous laugh, winking her eyes rapidly to cast off some tears. “You are a dear little angel!” she cried. “But Lenny will do that, and I’ll do it. I won’t ask it of you, my pretty darling. It would be more than was right.”
Alice was somewhat affronted at this rejection of her proposal. She was bewildered by her companion’s demeanour altogether. Why should she cry? and then refuse her assistance when she could have been of real use? But that was, of course, as Mrs. Lenny pleased.
“This is the fishpond,” she said, more coldly. “It is very old, and there are some carp in it that are supposed to be very old too.”
The fishpond was a piece of clear and beautiful water embosomed in the richest wood. It was the very centre of all the beauties of the Chase to the Markhams. A little brook trickled into it over a little fall which made music in the silence, itself unseen, mingling a more liquid silvery tone with all the songs of the birds and the murmur of the trees. A little path wandered along by one side, the others were sloping banks of greensward. The trees on all sides stooped as if leaning over each other’s shoulders to see themselves in that fairy mirror, where they all fluttered and trembled in reflection between the glimmer of the water and the blue circle of sky, which filled up all the middle with blueness and light. Some light and graceful birches upon the bank seemed to have pressed further forward like advanced posts to get nearest the pool; a great cluster of waterlilies filled up one corner. Even the impatient ponies stood still in this soft coolness and shadow; perhaps they had caught a glimpse of their pretty tossing heads and arched necks. Mrs. Lenny’s bonnet shone in that mirror like an exotic bird, poised over it, and her exclamation of delight broke the quiet with something of the same effect.
“What a lovely place!” she said; “and it’s I that would live long if I were a fish in such a sweet spot. Dear, dear, if one lived here it would be a tug to die at all. And you have been here, my darling, all your life?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alice, with a little laugh at the ignorance of the question. “This is home, where else could I be? This is only the second season I have ever been to town. I went for a little while last year though I was not out. This summer I have been introduced,” she said, with a little innocent ostentation. “I am out now. I go wherever mamma goes.”