“Nonsense, Geoffrey!” exclaimed Mrs. Mayhew, looking over her shoulder. “Alice”--in a tragic tone, and with a significant glance--“here are visitors.” “So I see,” replied Alice with wonderful nonchalance. “I suppose I must go in, though, literally speaking, I am _out_. Who will go with me?” looking round. “Don’t all speak at once.” “Not I, for one,” returned Mary promptly; “if I accompanied you with this red face”--fanning herself with a small branch of horse-chestnut leaves--“the people would think you had been beating me. Besides, I see too much of that old lady in her yellow bonnet as it is; she sits just in front of us in church. I believe she is the greatest gossip in the county, so be sure you don’t commit yourself beyond the weather, and the beauty and amiability of a certain Miss Ferrars who is staying with you.” “I’ll go with you, my pretty Alice,” said Geoffrey, still, however, retaining his recumbent position, and making believe to play the guitar upon his tennis-bat, and fingering away with great fluency and skill. “‘Nobody asked you, sir, she said,’” quoted Alice, standing up and shaking some crumbs from her lap. “Your manners are not sufficiently formed--you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘decorum,’ and you always try to make me laugh or inveigle me into some horrid blunder, and then you are delighted and sit grinning like a Cheshire cat. No, _you_ won’t do.” “Thanks, fair cousin, thanks,” raising himself to a kneeling posture, and making a profound full-length salaam on the short green sward. “I see I must go alone,” exclaimed Alice, glancing hopelessly at her husband, who was lying on the grass, smoking, his arms folded behind his head, his hat over his eyes, the very embodiment of luxurious lazy indifference. “Don’t drink _all_ the tea, good people,” was her parting injunction as she hurried off across the lawn, the whole party following with admiring eyes her well-poised figure and graceful gait. “I must go in too,” said Helen with visible reluctance, when she had conscientiously drained her second cup of tea. “I promised to drive down to the village with Miss Saville. She thinks one of the schoolmaster’s daughters would be an ideal maid for Hilda. Heigho! I suppose I must leave you,” rising heavily. “It is to be hoped that this ‘ideal maid’ will turn out to be something more beautiful than your present treasure, Helen,” remarked Geoffrey impressively. “To say that she is plain about the head but feebly expresses it; if you were to set her up in a field, not a crow would come near it. Shall I come with you”--half rising--“and give you the benefit of my critical and artistic eye? I’m not half a bad judge,” he added complacently. “How can you be so detestably vulgar! Fancy discussing the appearance of people’s servants,” said Helen, with the air of lofty righteous indignation. “And why not?” pursued Geoffrey serenely.