‘Yes; you see we’re all old maids here,’ said Miss Charity, with one of her hearty laughs. Her handsome old face shone cool at the bottom of the deep tunnel of her sun-bonnet, clear red and white, as if she had been twenty; and with large, blue, undimmed eyes, from which little Cara had taken hers, and not from either father’s or mother’s. Cara, indeed, was considered by everybody ‘the very image’ of Miss Charity, and copied her somewhat, it must be allowed, in a longer step and more erect carriage than was common to little girls. Miss Charity put down her scissors in her other basket, while Miss Cherry bent her reflective and troubled countenance over the roses, and drew off her big garden gloves, and led the way to the arbour or bower, which was not so cockney an erection as its name portended. At that height, under the shadow of a group of big fragrant limes, in which two openings cleverly cut revealed the broad beautiful plain below, one with St. George’s noble Castle in the midst of the leafy frame, the air was always fresh and sweet. By stretching your neck, as all the young Burchells knew, you could see the dusty road below, and the Rectory lying deep down in the shadow of the trees; but not a speck of dust made its way up to the soft velvet lawn, or entered at the ever-opened windows. ‘Ah, yes, there’s our poor little place, children; a very different place from this!’ Mrs. Burchell said, plaintively, as she sat down and began to fan herself once more. ‘You once thought it a very nice little place, Maria,’ said Miss Charity. ‘I am afraid you are getting tired of the rector, good man---- ’ ‘I?’ said Mrs. Burchell, ‘tired of my husband! You little know him or me, or you would not say such a thing. Nobody except those who have a husband like mine can understand what a blessing it is----’ ‘We don’t keep anything of the kind up here,’ said Miss Charity; ‘and here comes the tea. Cherry has gone in to have a cry over her roses. When one has not one thing to trouble about, one finds another. You because your house is not so big as ours; she because I cut the roses too short. We are but poor creatures, the best of us. Well, what’s the news, Maria? I always expect a budget of news when I see you.’