"You find it so here?" answered her friend.
"Why, yes, I do. Don't you?"
"I suppose I am spoiled, Miss Dolly, by being accustomed to Brierley."
"Oh, this is not Brierley! but I am not comparing them. This is very pretty, Mrs. Jersey! Why, Mrs. Jersey, you don't despise a daisy because it isn't a rose!"
"No," said her friend; "but I suppose I cannot see the daisy when the rose is by." She was looking at Dolly.
"Well," said Dolly, "the rose is not by; and I like this very much. What a neat house! and what a pleasant sort of comfort there is about everything. I would not have missed this, Mrs. Jersey, for a good deal."
"I am glad, Miss Dolly. I was thinking you were not taking much good of your day's ride—the latter part."
Dolly was silent, looking out now somewhat soberly upon the smiling scene; then she jumped up and threw off her gravity, and came to the supper-table. It was spread with exquisite neatness, and appetising nicety. Dolly found herself hungry. If but her errand to London had been of a less serious and critical character, she could have greatly enjoyed the adventure and its picturesque circumstances. With the elastic strength of seventeen, however, she did enjoy it, even so.
"How good you are to me, Mrs. Jersey!" she said, after the table was cleared and the two were sitting in the falling twilight. The still peace outside and inside the house had found its way to Dolly's heart. There was the brooding hush of the summer evening, marked, not broken, by sounds of insects or lowing of cattle, and the voices of farm servants attending to their work. It was yet bright outside, though the sun had long gone down; inside the house shades were gathering.
"I wish I could be good to you, Miss Dolly," was the housekeeper's answer.