"We know—" began Mr. Russell, but this was too much for Mrs. Gustus.
After all, the lady was her admirer.
"What's all this?" said Mrs. Gustus. "What do you people know about it?"
"I just thought I would talk a little now," said Kew. "I get quickly tired of hearing other people giving information without help from me."
"At any rate, Russ," continued Mrs. Gustus, "you can't know anything whatever about the matter. You have hardly listened when I read Jay's letters."
"I told you that I remembered," said Mr. Russell. "I don't know how. I remember sitting on a high cliff and seeing three black birds swim in a row, and dive in a row, and in a row come up again after I had counted hundreds."
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Gustus, trying not to appear cross before the visitor, "you're thinking of something else. You can see such a sight as that at the Zoo any day."
"You all seem to know quite a lot about the place," said the admirer, "yet not much of a very practical nature, if I may say so."
"Everything practical is unromantic," said Mrs. Gustus. "There is nothing true or beautiful in the world but poetry. If we seek in real simplicity of mind, we shall find what we seek, for simplicity is poetry, and poetry is truth."
"Also, of course, England has only one west coast," added Kew, "and if we don't find the place we shall have found a good many other things by the time we have finished."
"It may be in Ireland," suggested the admirer.