"My dear Fleda, I hope you are hungry," said Mrs. Evelyn, biting her pie, Fleda could not help thinking, with an air of good-humoured condescension.
"I am, Ma'am," she said, laughing.
"You look just as you used to do," Mrs. Evelyn went on, earnestly.
"Do I?" said Fleda, privately thinking that the lady must have good eyes for features of resemblance.
"Except that you have more colour in your cheeks and more sparkles in your eyes. Dear little creature that you were; I want to make you know my children. Do you remember that Mr. and Mrs. Carleton that took such care of you at Montepoole?"
"Certainly I do! very well."
"We saw them last winter; we were down at their country place in shire. They have a magnificent place there everything you can think of to make life pleasant. We spent a week with them. My dear Fleda, I wish I could show you that place! you never saw anything like it."
Fleda ate her pie.
"We have nothing like it in this country; of course, cannot have. One of those superb English country seats is beyond even the imagination of an American."
"Nature has been as kind to us, hasn't she?" said Fleda.