“I told you it was pretty, Agnes,” said Mr Atheling, who felt himself the exhibitor of the whole scene, and looked on with delight at the success of his private view. Papa, who was to the manner born, felt himself applauded in the admiration of his daughters, and carried Beau upon his shoulder down the creaking narrow staircase, with a certain pride and exultation, calling the reluctant girls to follow him. For lo! upon Miss Bridget’s centre table was laid out “such a tea!” as Hannah in all her remembrance had never produced before. Fresh home-made cakes, fresh little pats of butter from the nearest farm--cream! and to crown all, a great china dish full of the last of the strawberries, blushing behind their fresh wet leaves. Hannah, when she had lingered as long as her punctilious good-breeding would permit, and long enough to be very wrathful with Mrs Atheling for intercepting a shower of strawberries from the plates of Bell and Beau, retired to her kitchen slowly, and drawing a chair before the fire, though the evening still was sultry, threw her white apron over her head, and had her deferred and relieving “cry.” “Bless you, I’ll love ’um all,” said Hannah, with a succession of sobs, addressing either herself or some unseen familiar, with whom she was in the habit of holding long conversations. “But it ain’t Miss Bridget--that’s the truth!” The ground was wet, the trees were damp, everything had been deluged with the shower of the thunderstorm, and Mrs Atheling did not at all think it prudent that her daughters should go out, though she yielded to them. They went first through the fertile garden, where Marian thought “everything” grew--but were obliged to pause in their researches and somewhat ignorant guesses what everything was, by the unknown charm of that sweet rural atmosphere “after the rain.” Though it was very near sunset, the birds were all a-twitter in the neighbouring trees, and everywhere around them rose such a breath of fragrance--open-air fragrance, fresh and cool and sweet, as different from the incense of Mrs Edgerley’s conservatory as it was from anything in Bellevue. Running waters trickled somewhere out of sight--it was only the “running of the paths after rain;” and yonder, like a queen, sitting low in a sweet humility, was the silent town, with all its crowning towers. The sunshine, which still lingered on Hannah’s projecting window in the roof, had left Oxford half an hour ago--and down over the black dome, the heaven-y-piercing spire and lofty cupola, came soft and grey the shadow of the night.