Quiet, sunny days followed. There were hours in the glowing garden, murmurous with bees, heavy with delicate perfume of box and verbena and mignonette; hours in the great old house, with its family treasures of plate and china and mahogany, where ancient Chloe and Sylvester still served as in the days when they had followed North that kindly Yankee major they had found helpless after the doings in the Shenandoah Valley. There were company at dinner, less formal gatherings on the piazza of a moonlight evening, when accredited youngsters from the summer colony amused and sometimes scandalized Miss Herron with their laughter and singing. And now and then Lucy would be carried off to other houses of Barham; whence she would return to render a supposedly exact account of all she did and said. Only twice since the first of June did Miss Herron fail in her promise to Lucy’s father and to herself. And these occasions had been within the last ten days, when her old neuralgia had laid her low. What her charge was up to at those times, Miss Herron did not care to inquire. It was ordered that not even Lucy should come near when cousin Agatha was in pain, and therefore uncertain in temper as well as a bit careless as to costume.
“Tell me,” the old lady asked, after they had driven some distance along the shady road, “are you really enjoying your stay here?”
“Yes, indeed. I think Barham’s just lovely.”
“And what’s most lovable in it?”
Lucy stole a look from under her broad hat brim, then retreated. “I don’t believe I know,” she said, simply. “It’s all——”
“Charming. Of course. I’m glad you think so. We could dispense with the strangers, however. They don’t belong here. They are vulgarly rich and parvenu.”
“Some of them are nice, Cousin Agatha,” the child protested, deferentially.
“Who, for instance?”
“All those who come to the house.”
“A pack of rascals!” the old lady replied, crisply. “Laughing like—hyenas, if that’s the animal. It’s a mercy that the boys and girls are sent to good schools. They learn some decent behavior, though of course they haven’t had your advantages, my dear. But I dislike their mothers. They are rich, but they have no poise. Poise, my dear, and the marks of long descent. But the children may develop. All but one of them.”