Flora asked no more, but lay still on her couch of pine branches, looking out on the calm and glorified hills. Nobody else broke the silence; I think Fenton was gone to sleep; and the others were quiet.
"The shadows are going the wrong way," said Flora at last. "I wish this day would last longer!"
"'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,'" said Meredith.
"Don't quote such a dreadfully hackneyed sentiment!" said his sister. "How comes it, Mr. Murray, that beautiful things in nature never grow hackneyed?"
"They are always fresh. No two days in one's experience are just like each other."
"There never was a day in my experience like this one," said Flora. "Ditto, aren't you going to read some more?"
"It will be a variety, if I do."
"We are made to like variety—as Mr. Murray has just reminded you."
Meredith guessed that his sister cared more about putting off the hour of departure than about the reading in the abstract; and he opened his book again, for nobody else made any objection to Flora's proposal.
"I shall read you," said he, "the story of a pastor and a farmer."