And Nan laughed so blithely, it was a pleasure to hear her.

“Where’s Di?” asked John, seized with a most unmasculine curiosity all at once.

“She is in Germany with ‘Wilhelm Meister’; but, though ’lost to sight, to memory dear’; for I was just thinking, as I did her things, how clever she is to like all kinds of books that I don’t understand at all, and to write things that make me cry with pride and delight.  Yes, she’s a talented dear, though she hardly knows a needle from a crowbar, and will make herself one great blot some of these days, when the ‘divine afflatus’ descends upon her, I’m afraid.”

And Nan rubbed away with sisterly zeal at Di’s forlorn hose and inky pocket-handkerchiefs.

“Where is Laura?” proceeded the inquisitor.

“Well, I might say that she was in Italy; for she is copying some fine thing of Raphael’s, or Michel Angelo’s, or some great creature’s or other; and she looks so picturesque in her pretty gown, sitting before her easel, that it’s really a sight to behold, and I’ve peeped two or three times to see how she gets on.”

And Nan bestirred herself to prepare the dish wherewith her picturesque sister desired to prolong her artistic existence.

“Where is your father?” John asked again, checking off each answer with a nod and a little frown.

“He is down in the garden, deep in some plan about melons, the beginning of which seems to consist in stamping the first proposition in Euclid all over the bed, and then poking a few seeds into the middle of each.  Why, bless the dear man!  I forgot it was time for the cider.  Wouldn’t you like to take it to him, John?  He’d love to consult you; and the lane is so cool, it does one’s heart good to look at it.”

John glanced from the steamy kitchen to the shadowy path, and answered with a sudden assumption of immense industry,—­

“I couldn’t possibly go, Nan,—­I’ve so much on my hands.  You’ll have to do it yourself.  ‘Mr. Robert of Lincoln’ has something for your private ear; and the lane is so cool, it will do one’s heart good to see you in it.  Give my regards to your father, and, in the words of ‘Little Mabel’s’ mother, with slight variations,—­

  ’Tell the dear old body
    This day I cannot run,
  For the pots are boiling over
    And the mutton isn’t done.’”

“I will; but please, John, go in to the girls and be comfortable; for I don’t like to leave you here,” said Nan.

“You insinuate that I should pick at the pudding or invade the cream, do you?  Ungrateful girl, leave me!” And, with melodramatic sternness, John extinguished her in his broad-brimmed hat, and offered the glass like a poisoned goblet.

Nan took it, and went smiling away.  But the lane might have been the Desert of Sahara, for all she knew of it; and she would have passed her father as unconcernedly as if he had been an apple-tree, had he not called out,—­