"Is it possible you see nothing to admire?" says Mona, with intense disgust.
"I do. More than I can express. I see you," retorts he; at which they both give way to merriment, causing Geoffrey, who is walking with Lady Lilias, to dodge behind her back and bestow upon them an annihilating glance that Nolly afterwards describes as a "lurid glare."
The hound stalks on before them; the peac.o.c.ks wake up and rend the air with a discordant scream. Lady Lilias, coming to the sundial, leans her arm upon it, and puts her head in the right position. A snail slowly travelling across a broad ivy-leaf attracts her attention; she lifts it slowly, leaf and all, and directs attention to the silvery trail it has left behind it.
"How tender! how touching!" she says, with a pensive smile, raising her luminous eyes to Geoffrey: whether it is the snail, or the leaf, or the slime, that is tender and touching, n.o.body knows; and n.o.body dares ask, lest he shall betray his ignorance. Nolly, I regret to say, gives way to emotion of a frivolous kind, and to cover it blows his nose sonorously.
Whereupon Geoffrey, who is super-naturally grave, asks Lady Lilias if she will walk with him as far as the grotto.
"How could you laugh?" says Mona, reproachfully.
"How couldn"t I?" replies he. "Come; let us follow it up to the bitter end."
"I never saw anything so clean as the walks," says Mona, presently: "there is not a leaf or a weed to be seen, yet we have gone through so many of them. How does she manage it?"
"Don"t you know?" says Mr. Darling, mysteriously. "It is a secret, but I know you can be trusted. Every morning early she has them carefully swept, with tea-leaves to keep down the dust, and if the tea is strong it kills the weeds."
Then they do the grotto, and then Lady Lilias once more leads the way indoors.
"I want you to see my own work," she says, going up markedly to Mona. "I am glad my garden has pleased you. I could see by your eyes how well you appreciated it. To see the beautiful in everything, that is the only true religion." She smiles her careful absent smile again as she says this, and gazes earnestly at Mona. Perhaps, being true to her religion, she is noting "the beautiful" in her Irish guest.
With Philippa they have some tea, and then again follow their indefatigable hostess to a distant apartment that seems more or less to jut out from the house, and was in olden days a tiny chapel or oratory.
It has an octagon chamber of the most uncomfortable description, but no doubt artistic, and above all praise, according to some lights. To outsiders it presents a curious appearance, and might by the unlearned be regarded as a jumble of all ages, a make-up of objectionable bits from different centuries; but to Lady Lilias and her sympathizers it is simply perfection.
The furniture is composed of oak of the hardest and most severe. To sit down would be a labor of anything but love. The chairs are strictly Gothic. The table is a marvel in itself for ugliness and in utility.
There are no windows; but in their place are four unpleasant slits about two yards in length, let into the thick walls at studiously unequal distances. These are filled up with an opaque substance that perhaps in the Middle Ages was called gla.s.s.
There is no grate, and the fire, which has plainly made up its mind not to light, is composed of Yule-logs. The floor is shining with sand, rushes having palled on Lady Lilias.
Mona is quite pleased. All is new, which in itself is a pleasure to her, and the sanded floor carries her back on the instant to the old parlor at home, which was their "best" at the Farm.
"This is nicer than anything," she says, turning in a state of childish enthusiasm to Lady Lilias. "It is just like the floor in my uncle"s house at home."
"Ah! indeed! How interesting!" says Lady Lilias, rousing into something that very nearly borders on animation. "I did not think there was in England another room like this."
"Not in England, perhaps. When I spoke I was thinking of Ireland," says Mona.
"Yes?" with calm surprise. "I--I have heard of Ireland, of course.
Indeed, I regard the older accounts of it as very deserving of thought; but I had no idea the more elevated aspirations of modern times had spread so far. So this room reminds you of--your uncle"s?"
"Partly," says Mona. "Not altogether: there was always a faint odor of pipes about Uncle Brian"s room that does not belong to this."
"Ah! Tobacco! First introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh," murmurs Lady Lilias, musingly. "Too modern, but no doubt correct and in keeping. Your uncle, then,"--looking at Mona,--"is beyond question an earnest student of our faith."
"A--student?" says Mona, in a degree puzzled.
Doatie and Geoffrey have walked to a distant slit. Nolly is gazing vacantly through another, trying feebly to discern the landscape beyond. Lady Rodney is on thorns. They are all listening to what Mona is going to say next.
"Yes. A disciple, a searcher after truth," goes on Lady Lilias, in her Noah"s Ark tone. "By a student I mean one who studies, and arrives at perfection--in time."
"I don"t quite know," says Mona, slowly, "but what Uncle Brian princ.i.p.ally studies is--pigs!"
"Pigs!" repeats Lady Lilias, plainly taken aback.
"Yes; pigs!" says Mona, sweetly.
There is a faint pause,--so faint that Lady Rodney is unable to edge in the saving clause she would fain have uttered. Lady Lilias, recovering with wonderful spirit from so severe a blow, comes once more boldly to the front. She taps her white taper fingers lightly on the table near her, and says, apologetically,--the apology being meant for herself,--
"Forgive me that I showed surprise. Your uncle is more advanced than I had supposed. He is right. Why should a pig be esteemed less lovely than a stag? Nature in its entirety can know no blemish. The fault lies with us. We are creatures of habit: we have chosen to regard the innocent pig as a type of ugliness for generations, and now find it difficult to see any beauty in it."
"Well; there isn"t much, is there?" says Mona, pleasantly.
"No doubt education, and a careful study of the animal in question, might betray much to us," says Lady Lilias. "We object to the uncovered hide of the pig, and to his small eyes; but can they not see as well as those of the fawn, or the delicate lapdog we fondle all day on our knees? It is unjust that one animal should be treated with less regard than another."
"But you couldn"t fondle a pig on your knees," says Mona, who is growing every minute more and more mixed.
"No, no; but it should be treated with courtesy. We were speaking of the size of its eyes. Why should they be despised? Do we not often in our ignorance and narrow mindedness cling to paltry things and ignore the truly great? The tiny diamond that lies in the hollow of our hands is dear and precious in our sight, whilst we fail to find beauty in the huge boulder that is after all far more worthy of regard, with its lights and shades, its grand ruggedness, and the soft vegetable matter that decks its aged sides, rendering their roughness beautiful."
Here she gets completely out of her depths, and stops to consider from whence this train of thought sprung. The pig is forgotten,--indeed, to get from pigs to diamonds and back again is not an easy matter,--and has to be searched for again amidst the dim recesses of her brain, and if possible brought to the surface.
She draws up her tall figure to its utmost height, and gazes at the raftered ceiling to see if inspiration can be drawn from thence. But it fails her.
"You were talking of pigs," says Mona, gently.
"Ah! so I was," says Lady Lilias, with a sigh of relief: she is quite too intense to feel any of the petty vexations of ordinary mortals, and takes Mona"s help in excellent part. "Yes, I really think there is loveliness in a pig when surrounded by its offspring. I have seen them once or twice, and I think the little pigs--the--the----"
"Bonuvs," says Mona, mildly, going back naturally to the Irish term for those interesting babies.
"Eh?" says Lady Lilias.
"Bonuvs," repeats Mona, a little louder, at which Lady Rodney sinks into a chair, as though utterly overcome. Nolly and Geoffrey are convulsed with laughter. Doatie is vainly endeavoring to keep them in order.
"Oh, is that their name?--a pretty one too--if--er--somewhat difficult,"
says Lady Lilias, courteously. "Well as I was saying, in spite of their tails, they really are quite pretty."
At this Mona laughs unrestrainedly; and Lady Rodney, rising hurriedly, says,--
"Dear Lady Lilias, I think we have at last nearly taken in all the beauties of your charming room. I fear," with much suavity, "we must be going."
"Oh, not yet," says Lady Lilias, with the nearest attempt at youthfulness she has yet made. "Mrs. Rodney has not half seen all my treasures."
Mrs. Rodney, however, has been foraging on her own account during this brief interlude, and now brings triumphantly to light a little basin filled with early snowdrops.
"Snowdrops,--and so soon," she says, going up to Lady Lilias, and looking quite happy over her discovery. "We have none yet at the Towers."
"Yes, they are pretty, but insignificant," says the sthete, contemptuously. "Paltry children of the earth, not to be compared with the lenten or the tiger lily, or the fiercer beauty of the sunflower, or the hues of the unsurpa.s.sable thistle!"
"I am very ignorant I know," says Mrs. Geoffrey, with her sunny smile, "but I think I should prefer a snowdrop to a thistle."