The ugly child twitched her feet under the rug beside me; she said nothing, but looked it.
“Oh, the duck-weed!” said Christina, who knows Ariadne too well to be amused by anything she says. “Miss Emerson Tree here—allow me to introduce Peter’s American niece, Miss Jane Emerson Tree—calls it the ‘stagnance.’”
The ugly child still didn’t say anything, though “stagnance” was just as absurd a word for mildew on a pond as verdigris, and I began to be quite afraid of one who, though so young, didn’t seem to want to fly out. She turned half round though, and seemed to be staring hard at the body of Ariadne’s shooting dress with its patch on the left shoulder. Christina went on enlightening us about the country and telling us the sort of things we were likely to ask and make fools of ourselves about. I do believe she was afraid of our saying something specially silly before Jane Emerson Tree, and wanted to save us from ourselves.
It came at last, and Ariadne nearly toppled out of the cart. The ugly child spoke in the most strong American accent, and the way she leant upon the last syllable of the word despise was the nastiest thing I ever heard.
“Oh, I do just despise your waist!” she said to Ariadne; “I’ve been looking at it all the way we’ve come.”
Christina absently took hold of her whip and then rattled it back in its socket. She then scolded Jane till I should have thought any ordinary child couldn’t have gone on sitting up, but this one did, never saying a word, but pursed her mouth in till there was hardly a line to be seen. Then Christina began to tell us how dull she had found it living in the country, and how difficult to get acclimatized at first.
“But in the end, the country rubs off on one,” she sighed, “and a good thing too. Oh, the mistakes I made at first! You know that Peter and I have both been staying with the dear Bishop of Guyzance.”
“Oh, Christina, you have changed!” said I.
“I know, dear, three services on Sunday and a shilling for the offertory. So different from Newton Hall and Farm Street. As I was saying, I came back from Lale Castle the day before yesterday, post haste, to hatch some chickens——”
“I thought a hen did that?” ventured Ariadne.