“How perfectly wonderful!” Mrs. Fortescue said from time to time. “Did you ever see such a monster?” She is a dear old lady and I did my very best. I said that they were graceful, wonderful, exquisite, that they added so much to my interest in the country that I did not know what I should do without them. I picked her lace mantle off the bushes when it got caught, I made way for her round the corners, and dodged about, and knocked into her, and trod on her toes when she first stood aside for me and then decided to proceed just as I slipped by to save trouble. I disentangled her parasol from my veil eight times and said that it did not matter a bit, it was torn already; I admired the gooseberry bushes and the artichokes and wondered how many gardeners they needed to keep the herbaceous border so tidy; I pointed out several particularly rich colours entirely on my own initiative and was really brilliant about the thinning out of something--I forget what--it was just a fluke anyhow. When we got back and Mrs. Fortescue kindly offered to drive me home because she said I looked absolutely worn out with the heat, I jumped at her suggestion. But, first, I took Mrs. Van Dieman aside. “Very well, Minnie,” I said, “I shall send you a book of fables which I want you to read carefully. There is one about an elephant who was ill-treated by his keeper. Years and years afterwards he met the man at a public gathering or somewhere, and squirted a pail of dirty water over him. This will show you how tenacious a thing is memory. The second story I want you to notice is of a stork who invited a fox to lunch. You shall lunch with me next Tuesday and I will ask three Russian anarchists and the clown from Hengler’s Circus to meet you and you shall play ‘consequences’ with them.” “By the time you have been here six months,” she assured me, “you will have made far nicer friends; there are some quite delightful people near here.” “But if they are all so delightful,” I said, “why have none of them a good word to say for one another? At every turn one is brought up by the word ‘impossible.’ It starts up like a policeman with a gloved hand.” “My dear,” she remonstrated, “you ought not to complain, you seem to do whatever you like.” “Then look here,” I persisted, “excuse me, Mrs. Fortescue is waiting, I must fly--why cannot the others do as they like--all your delightful people?” “Oh, that is different,” Mrs. Van Dieman answered loftily. “They are quite impossible; it would never do.” _CHAPTER XVII_: THE BUTLER