“And with wisdom come those feminine attributes that Agatha began asking about.” “Yes, softening, gentleness, tact. If people have not grown up to them, they must be taught as parts of wisdom.” Gillian sighed. “I wonder what Ernley Armitage will say when he comes home?” “He won’t want you to throw up everything.” “I don’t think he will! But if he did—No, I think he will be a staff to guide a silly, priggish heart to the deeper wisdom.” CHAPTER XVII—FOXGLOVES AND FLIRTATIONS “With her venturous climbings, and tumbles, and childish escapes.” TENNYSON. HUBERT DELRIO, pleased and gratified, but very shy, joined the ladies from the Goyle in their walk to Clipstone, expecting perhaps a good deal of stiffness and constraint, since every one at St. Kenelm’s told him what a severe and formidable person Sir Jasper Merrifield was, and that all Lady Merrifield’s surroundings were “so very clever.” “They did want _such_ books ordered in the library.” Magdalen laughed, and said her only chance of seeing a book she wanted was that Lady Merrifield should have asked for it. At Clipstone, they were directed to the dell where the foxgloves were unusually fine that year, covering one of the banks of the ravine with a perfect cloud of close-grown spikes, nodding with thick clustered bells, spotted withinside, and without, of that indescribable light crimson or purple, enchanting in reality but impossible to reproduce. It was like a dream of fairy land to Hubert to wander thither with his Vera, count the tiers of bells, admire the rings of purple and the crooked stamens, measure the height of the tall ones, some almost equal to himself in stature, and recall the fairy lore and poetry connected with them, while Vera listened and thought she enjoyed, but kept herself entertained by surreptitiously popping the blossoms, and trying to wreath her hat with wild roses. Thekla meantime admired from the opposite bank, in a state of much elevation at acquiring a dear delicious brother-in-law, and insisted on Primrose sharing her sentiments till her boasting at last provoked the exclamation, “I wouldn’t be so cocky! I don’t make such a fuss if my sisters do go and fall in love. I have two brothers-in-law out in India, and Gillian has a captain, an Egyptian hero, with a medal, a post captain out at sea in the _Nivelle_. You shall see his photograph coloured in his lovely uniform, with his sword and all! Your Flapsy’s man isn’t even an officer!” “He is a poet, and that’s better!” “Better! why, if you _will_ have it, Wilfred and Fergus always call him that ‘painter cad,’” broke out Primrose, who had not outgrown her childish power of rudeness, especially out of hearing of her elders. “Then it is very wicked of them,” exclaimed Thekla, “when the Marquis of Rotherwood himself said that Hubert Delrio is a very superior young man” (each syllable triumphantly rounded off).