’I think Wordsworth’s was an essentially happy life, in spite of his narrow range,’ answered Hammond.  ’You, with your ardent youth and vivid desire for a life of action, cannot imagine the calm blisses of reverie and constant communion with nature.  Wordsworth had a thousand companions you and I would never dream of; for him every flower that grows was an individual existence—­almost a soul.’

’It was a mild kind of lunacy, an everlasting opium dream without the opium; but I am grateful to him for living such a life, since it has bequeathed us some exquisite poetry,’ said Lesbia, who had been too carefully cultured to fleer or flout at Wordsworth.

‘I do believe there’s an otter just under that bank,’ cried Molly, who had been watching the obvious excitement of her bandy-legged hound; and she rushed down to the brink of the water, leaping lightly from stone to stone, and inciting the hound to business.

‘Let him alone, can’t you?’ roared Maulevrier; ’leave him in peace till he’s wanted.  If you disturb him now he’ll desert his holt, and we may have a blank day.  The hounds are to be out to-morrow.’

‘I may go with you?’ asked Mary, eagerly.

‘Well, yes, I suppose you’ll want to be in it.’  Molly and her brother went on an exploring ramble along the edge of the water towards Ambleside, leaving John Hammond in Lesbia’s company, but closely guarded by Miss Mueller.  These three went to look at Nab Cottage, where poor Hartley Coleridge ended his brief and clouded days; and they had gone some way upon their homeward walk before they were rejoined by Maulevrier and Mary, the damsel’s kilted skirt considerably the worse for mud and mire.

‘What would grandmother say if she were to see you!’ exclaimed Lesbia, looking contemptuously at the muddy petticoat.

‘I am not going to let her see me, so she will say nothing,’ cried Mary, and then she called to the dogs, ‘Ammon, Agag, Angelina;’ and the three fox terriers flew along the road, falling over themselves in the swiftness of their flight, darting, and leaping, and scrambling over each other, and offering the spectators the most intense example of joyous animal life.

The colley was far up on the hill-side, and the otter-hound was still hunting the water, but the terriers never went out of Mary’s sight.  They looked to her to take the initiative in all their sports.

They were back at Fellside in time for a very late tea.  Lady Maulevrier was waiting for them in the drawing-room.

‘Oh, grandmother, why did you not take your tea!’ exclaimed Lesbia, looking really distressed.  ‘It is six o’clock.’

‘I am used to have you at home to hand me my cup,’ replied the dowager, with a touch of reproachfulness.

‘I am so sorry,’ said Lesbia, sitting down before the tea-table, and beginning her accustomed duty.  ’Indeed, dear grandmother, I had no idea it was so late; but it was such a lovely afternoon, and Mr. Hammond is so interested in everything connected with Wordsworth—­’