His arrival was delayed for a few days.  When he came Surrey looked its best, for it was June; and though the winds were chilly, the grass was grown and the orchard leaves were crowding off the blossoms.  The woods were vividly green.  The fauns were playing there, and the sirens sang under the sea.  But I had other thoughts; the fauns and sirens were not for me, perplexed as I was with household cares.  Hepsey proposed staying another year, but I was firm; and she went, begging Fanny to go with her and be as a daughter.  She declined; but the proposition influenced her to be troublesome to me.  She told me she was of age now, and that no person had a right to control her.  At present she was useful where she was, and might remain.

“Will you have wages?” I asked her.

“That is Mr. Morgeson’s business.”

My anger would have pleased her, so I concealed it.

“Your ability, Fanny, is better than your disposition.  Me,—­you do not suit at all; but it is certain that father depends on you for his small comforts, and Veronica likes you.  I wish you would stay.”

She placed her arms akimbo.

“I should like to find you out, exactly.  I can’t.  I never could find out your mother; all the rest of you are as clear as daylight.”  And she snapped her fingers as if ‘the rest’ were between them.

“You lack faith.”

“You believe that this is a beautiful world, don’t you?  I hate it.  I should think you had reason, too, for hating it.  Pray what have you got?”

“An ungrateful imp that was bequeathed to me.”

She saw father in the garden beckoning me.  “He wants you.  I do not hate the world always,” she added, with her eyes fixed on him.

I was disposed to trouble the still waters of our domestic life with theories.  Our ways were too mechanical.  The old-fashioned asceticism which considered air, sleep, food, as mere necessities was stupid.  But I had no assistance; Veronica thought that her share of my plans must consist of a diligent notice of all that I did, which she gave, and then went to her own life, kept sacredly apart.  Fanny laughed in her sleeve and took another side—­the practical, and shone in it, becoming in fact the true manager and worker, while I played.  Aunt Merce was helpless.  She neglected her former cares; and father was, what he always had been at home,—­heedless and indifferent.

One morning we stood on the landing stair—­Ben, Veronica, and myself—­looking from the window.  A silver mist so thinly wrapped the orchard that the wet, shining leaves thrust themselves through in patches.  Birds were singing beneath, feeling the warmth of the sun, scarcely hid.  The young leaves and blossoms steeping in the mist sent up a delicious odor.

“I like Surrey better and better,” he said; “the atmosphere suits me.”

“Oh, I am glad,” answered Verry.  “I could never go away.  It is not beautiful, I know; in fact, it is meager when it comes to be talked of; but there are suggestions here which occasionally stimulate me.”