"Why, you told me about it yourself."
"Do you like it better than your wood pile in the forest?"
Lettice paused in the act of threading her needle to look round on the brown and gold of hills and woods and sky. "Yes," said she; and if she had raved for an hour she could have expressed no more. Comfortable silence fell between them. Lettice stitched, and Gardiner smoked, and in the west the sunset flared in citron, amber, saffron, bronze, and a thousand shades of glory. In the east a scroll of cloud reared dazzling sunny heights of snow against dazzling blue. Lettice's needle slackened; it came to a standstill.
"Penny for your thoughts," said Gardiner.
"I haven't any."
"I thought you were composing a poem."
Insults of insults! Lettice looked volumes of reproach. "I was not," said she.
"But you do write poetry."
"Who told you so?"