"The party is not in the least what your chaperone expected; indeed, we can hardly be dignified by the name of a party at all, but you see how happy she is. She even enjoyed dear old Groombridge's prosing last night, and she has been very happy in church, and now she is going to see the dairy. The only thing that troubles her is that Lady Groombridge has not allowed her to change her gown, and a well-regulated mind cannot enjoy her prayers and a visit to cows in the same gown. Now suppose," he looked at Molly with a lazy, friendly smile, "you put on a short skirt and come for a walk." A little later they were walking through the woods on the hills beyond the Castle. Perhaps he intended that Rose, who had stayed to speak to the vicar, should find that he had not been waiting about for her return. "I would give a good deal to possess the cheerful philosophy of Mrs. Delaport Green," he said, as, looking down through an opening in the trees, they could see that little woman with her skirts gracefully held up standing by while Lady Groombridge discoursed to the keeper of cows, who looked sleek and prosperous and a little sulky the while. "You would be wise to learn some of it from her," Edmund went on. "Isn't this nice? Let us sit upon the ground, as it is dry, and feel how good everything is. You like this sort of thing, don't you?" Molly murmured "Yes," and sat down on a mossy bank and looked up into the glorious blue sky and then at a tuft of large, pale primroses in the midst of dark ground ivy, then far down to the fields where a group of brown cows, rich in colour, stood lazily content by a blue stream that sparkled in the sunlight. Edmund was not hard-hearted, and Molly looked very young, and a pathetic trouble underlay the sense of pleasure in her face. There was no peace in Molly's eyes, only the quick alternations of acute enjoyment and the revolt against pain and a child's resentment at supposed blame. Pleasure was uppermost at this moment, for so many slight, easy, human pleasures were new to her. She sat curved on the ground, with the ease and suppleness of a greyhound ready to spring, whereas Sir Edmund was forty and a little more stiff than his age warranted. "But when you do enjoy yourself I imagine it's worth a good many hours of our friend's sunny existence. Oh, dear, dear!" For at that moment the dairy was a scene of some confusion; two enormous dogs from the Castle had bounded up to Lady Groombridge, barking outrageously, and one of them had covered her companion with mud. "She is saying that it does not matter in the least, and that the gown is an old rag, but I'm sure it's new on to-day, and it's impossible to say how much has not been paid for it." Molly laughed; she felt as sure that Sir Edmund was right as if she could hear every word the little woman was saying. "Well, _that_ you will allow is humbug!"