"Her wood for ever!" cried Mr. Worters. "It is an unsatisfactory arrangement, a ninety-nine years' lease. There is no feeling of permanency. I reopened negotiations. I have bought her the wood for ever--all right, dear, all right: don't make a fuss." "But I must!" she cried. "For everything's perfect! Every one so kind--and I didn't know most of you a year ago. Oh, it is so wonderful--and now a wood--a wood of my own--a wood for ever. All of you coming to tea with me here! Dear Harcourt--dear people--and just where the house would come and spoil things, there is Mr. Ford!" "Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Worters, and slipped his hand up round the boy's ankle. What happened I do not know, but Ford collapsed on to the ground with a sharp cry. To an outsider it might have sounded like a cry of anger or pain. We, who knew better, laughed uproariously. "Down he goes! Down he goes!" And they struggled playfully, kicking up the mould and the dry leaves. "Don't hurt my wood!" cried Miss Beaumont. Ford gave another sharp cry. Mr. Worters withdrew his hand. "Victory!" he exclaimed. "Evelyn! behold the family seat!" But Miss Beaumont, in her butterfly fashion, had left us, and was strolling away into her wood. We packed up the tea-things and then split into groups. Ford went with the ladies. Mr. Worters did me the honour to stop by me. "Well!" he said, in accordance with his usual formula, "and how go the classics?" "Fairly well." "Does Miss Beaumont show any ability?" "I should say that she does. At all events she has enthusiasm." "You do not think it is the enthusiasm of a child? I will be frank with you, Mr. Inskip. In many ways Miss Beaumont's practically a child. She has everything to learn: she acknowledges as much herself. Her new life is so different--so strange. Our habits--our thoughts--she has to be initiated into them all." I saw what he was driving at, but I am not a fool, and I replied: "And how can she be initiated better than through the classics?" "Exactly, exactly," said Mr. Worters. In the distance we heard her voice. She was counting the beech-trees. "The only question is--this Latin and Greek--what will she do with it? Can she make anything of it? Can she--well, it's not as if she will ever have to teach it to others." "That is true." And my features might have been observed to become undecided. "Whether, since she knows so little--I grant you she has enthusiasm. But ought one not to divert her enthusiasm--say to English literature? She scarcely knows her Tennyson at all. Last night in the conservatory I read her that wonderful scene between Arthur and Guinevere. Greek and Latin are all very well, but I sometimes feel we ought to begin at the beginning." "You feel," said I, "that for Miss Beaumont the classics are something of a luxury."