CHAPTER XVII

IN THE ORCHARD

"Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom."

"Nature is God's, art is man's instrument."

-Carlyle.

-Sir T. Overbury.

"I HAVE heard from Vinny, Diogenes. She is coming down next Tuesday to stay with us for a week, won't it be nice? But I am afraid I shall be at the Rectory most of the day. Still I shall see her in the evening."

"Is Mother Mumps coming with her?"

Just for the day on her way into Hertfordshire. She is going to stay with some friends there."

"It will be rather awkward your being away."

"I think I shall bring Ida here for the afternoon. You see we shall only do lessons for an hour or so in the morning. As long as I have her with me, it will be all right. I am sure Mrs. Hunt will say so."

Olive and Osmond were at breakfast the next morning, and Olive had hardly finished speaking before there was a little clatter and bustle in the passage.

"Where's Uncle Humbug?"

It was Ida, of course, rushing breathlessly into the house with this inquiry, dragging Beautiful after her in only a scanty night attire.

"Here we are- -at breakfast," called out Olive; come along in."

"Mother's been saying such things," panted the child, looking with bewildered eyes first at Olive then at Osmond. "She says Miss Tracy is coming to be my governess. Why they're horrid people, and how can she leave you, Uncle Humbug?"

Olive drew the child gently to her.

"Darling let us forget all about the governess! I am coming to take you for walks, and tell you stories, and we will come over and have tea with Uncle Humbug. We won't do lessons all day, and I shall make some new frocks for Beautiful."

Ida looked down fondly at her treasure.

"I brought her along in her nighty; I hadn't time to put her frock on, because I was so frightened-mother said I mustn't run wild no longer. I don't run wild, I run fearfully straight always, and I've hardly stopped for breath. Will you make Beautiful a new sunbonnet? And what will Uncle Humbug do?"

"He will always be ready to hear what Miss Oddity has been doing, when Miss Tracy comes back to him in the evening," said Osmond, buttering a piece of toast and holding it out to her.

Ida took it and began munching it thoughtfully, then she rested her head confidingly against Olive's shoulder.

"You'll be just the same as you always are," she said; "you won't turn into a governess and slap me?" "I promise you I won't do that."

"And you'll let me run out into the garden whenever I want to?"

"Look here, Diogenes, you have a talk with her; I want to send a letter into the village by Andrew, and he is just off."

Olive left the room, and Ida drew near to Osmond with a relieved face.

"Tell me true, Uncle Humbug. She isn't going to turn strict!"

"I don't think she will. She is very fond of you, little woman, and you love her too, don't you?"

(C Yes, and so does Beautiful; and she wants new frocks dreadful!"

“Well, you know you are getting a big girl, and all the boys and girls in the village have been doing lessons for a long time. You must be wanting to do some, I am sure, so that you may grow up a clever girl, and not be looked upon as a stupid little ignoramus! Of course every little girl has a governess when they are big enough, and I think you would rather have Miss Tracy to teach you than a tall old lady in cap and spectacles, with a long face and pointed chin, and a pocket full of lesson books!"

Ida was laughing now. "Yes I would, and so would Beautiful, and Miss Tracy will have to teach her as well as me, she can learn a lot of lessons if she can't say them. Beautiful can't speak, that's the only thing she can't do besides not walking, but she does whisper in my ear very soft in the night sometimes, just to tell me she loves me!"

Here Beautiful was hugged and kissed; and when Olive came back to the room, a little later, she was hugged and kissed too.

"I will be good, I will learn my lessons with you, and I like you ever so much better than the governess with the pointed chin and lesson books in her pocket, and spectacles and cap!"

The little maiden had recovered her spirits, and startled her parents by observing at the lunch table

"Beautiful and me has been wanting to be good and learn lessons ever since we was born, and nobody has showed us how to!"

Mrs. Hunt looked across at her husband.

"I hope you feel snubbed, William dear," then she said cheerfully to her little daughter

"I'm glad to hear of such a want, Ida. The way will be easy for you after next Monday."

"Miss Tracy is going to make Beautiful new frocks," the small maiden continued; "and we shall play games when we are too tired to do lessons!"

Mrs. Hunt wisely ignored this small note of defiance. She was relieved the matter had been amicably settled, and only bargained with Olive that she was never to refer to her in any difficulty.

"Your judgment and tact are superior to mine; and you must consider you have full authority over her. I have the utmost confidence in your capacity to manage her. I'm afraid I am not a person who can use middle measures with children. I either err on the side of severity or indulgence!

So Olive started work with her small pupil on Monday, and found it gave her plenty of scope for thought, patience and ingenuity.

On Tuesday, true to her word, Vinny arrived with Elsie, and the former was welcomed heartily by the farmer and his wife.

It was a bright sunny day; wonderfully warm for the beginning of November. Olive came back in time for lunch, bringing her small pupil with her, and afterwards

they all adjourned to the orchard, where, with warm wraps round her, Vinny sat back in a low chair looking the picture of content.

This old orchard had not often been without occupants during the summer, and Olive and Osmond, like Vinny, felt a spell of restfulness and content fall upon them whenever they entered it. They had seen it in the early summer when the scent of the new mown hay was wafted across it, and it was full of golden sunshine and flowers; autumn with its mellow touches upon fruit and corn, had brightened its old fruit trees with rosy apples and golden pears; and now even in November the sun seemed loth to leave it, and the dying leaves still clung with tenacious grip to their parent stems.

"Isn't it an ideal place?" Vinny said presently. "I could live my life here with such happiness! I always look back with pleasure to my days last summer. It was a perfect haven!"

Elsie glanced round with a laughing shrug of her shoulders.

"A week would suffice for me," she said.

"How have you existed, Olive, all this summer?"

"Oh it suits me very well," answered Olive, looking at her younger sister critically.

Elsie was now dressed in the latest fashion, and had already begun to lighten her mourning with touches of white and heliotrope. She looked radiantly happy; her slow and rather dreamy manner had given way to a fresh sparkling audacity. She was conscious of her power to please and attract, and so was not troubled with any diffidence or awkwardness.