Dunsford. Well, I like that fable: only I am not quite clear about the meaning.
Ellesmere. You had no doubt about mine.
Dunsford. Is the mist calumny, Milverton?
Ellesmere. No, prejudice, I am sure.
Dunsford. Familiarity with the things around us, obscuring knowledge?
Milverton. I would rather not explain. Each of you make your own fable of it.
Dunsford. Well, if ever I make a fable, it shall be one of the old-fashioned sort, with animals for the speakers, and a good easy moral.
Ellesmere. Not a thing requiring the notes of seven German metaphysicians. I must go and talk a little to my friends the trees, and see if I can get any explanation from them. It is turning out a beautiful day after all, notwithstanding my praise of its solidity.
CHAPTER VII.
We met as usual at our old spot on the lawn for our next reading. I forget what took place before reading, except that Ellesmere was very jocose about our reading “Fiction” in-doors, and the following “November Essay,” as he called it, “under a jovial sun, and with the power of getting up and walking away from each other to any extent.”