Then they make their way over the smooth lawns, and past the glowing flower-beds, and past Sir John Lincoln, too, who is standing in an impossible attitude, that makes him all elbows and knees, talking to a very splendid young man--all bone and muscle and good humor--who is plainly delighted with him. To the splendid young man he is nothing but one vast joke. Seeing Mrs. Branscombe, they both raise their hats, and Sir John so far forgets the tulips as to give it as his opinion that she is "Quite too, too intense for every-day life." Whereupon the splendid young man, breaking into praise too, declares she is "Quite too awfully jolly, don't you know," which commonplace remark so horrifies his companion that he sadly and tearfully turns aside, and leaves him to his fate. Georgie, who has been brought to a standstill for a moment, hears both remarks, and laughs aloud. "It is something to be admired by Colonel Vibart, isn't it?" she says to Dorian; "but it is really very sad about poor Sir John. He has bulbous roots on the brain, and they have turned him as mad as a hatter." CHAPTER XXVIII. "There's not a scene on earth so full of lightness That withering care Sleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightness To dark despair."--HON. MRS. NORTON. It is a day of a blue and goldness so intense as to make one believe these two are the only colors on earth worthy of admiration. The sky is cloudless; the great sun is wide awake; the flowers are drooping, sleeping,--too languid to lift their heavy heads. "The gentle wind, that like a ghost doth pass, A waving shadow on the cornfield keeps." And Georgie descending the stone steps of the balcony, feels her whole nature thrill and glow beneath the warmth and richness of the beauty spread all around with lavish hand. Scarcely a breath stirs the air; no sound comes to mar the deep stillness of the day, save the echo of the "swallows' silken wings skimming the water of the sleeping lake." As she passes the rose-trees, she puts out her hand, and, from the very fulness of her heart, touches some of the drowsy flowers with caressing fingers. She is feeling peculiarly happy to-day: everything is going so smoothly with her; her life is devoid of care; only sunshine streams upon her path; storm and rain and nipping frosts seem all forgotten. Going into the garden, she pulls a flower or two and places them in the bosom of her white gown, and bending over the basin of a fountain, looks at her own image, and smiles at it, as well she may. Then she blushes at her own vanity, and, drawing back from nature's mirror, tells herself she will go a little farther, and see what Andrews, the under-gardener (who has come to Sartoris from Hythe), is doing in the shrubbery.