“Every one to his taste!” said Harriet, who always delivered a platitude as if it was an epigram.  She was curiously virulent about Italy, which she had never visited, her only experience of the Continent being an occasional six weeks in the Protestant parts of Switzerland.

“Oh, Harriet is a bad lot!” said Philip as soon as she left the room.  His mother laughed, and told him not to be naughty; and the appearance of Irma, just off to school, prevented further discussion.  Not only in Tracts is a child a peacemaker.

“One moment, Irma,” said her uncle.  “I’m going to the station.  I’ll give you the pleasure of my company.”

They started together.  Irma was gratified; but conversation flagged, for Philip had not the art of talking to the young.  Mrs. Herriton sat a little longer at the breakfast table, re-reading Lilia’s letter.  Then she helped the cook to clear, ordered dinner, and started the housemaid turning out the drawing-room, Tuesday being its day.  The weather was lovely, and she thought she would do a little gardening, as it was quite early.  She called Harriet, who had recovered from the insult to St. James’s, and together they went to the kitchen garden and began to sow some early vegetables.

“We will save the peas to the last; they are the greatest fun,” said Mrs. Herriton, who had the gift of making work a treat.  She and her elderly daughter always got on very well, though they had not a great deal in common.  Harriet’s education had been almost too successful.  As Philip once said, she had “bolted all the cardinal virtues and couldn’t digest them.”  Though pious and patriotic, and a great moral asset for the house, she lacked that pliancy and tact which her mother so much valued, and had expected her to pick up for herself.  Harriet, if she had been allowed, would have driven Lilia to an open rupture, and, what was worse, she would have done the same to Philip two years before, when he returned full of passion for Italy, and ridiculing Sawston and its ways.

“It’s a shame, Mother!” she had cried.  “Philip laughs at everything—­the Book Club, the Debating Society, the Progressive Whist, the bazaars.  People won’t like it.  We have our reputation.  A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Mrs. Herriton replied in the memorable words, “Let Philip say what he likes, and he will let us do what we like.”  And Harriet had acquiesced.

They sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant feeling of righteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed themselves to the peas.  Harriet stretched a string to guide the row straight, and Mrs. Herriton scratched a furrow with a pointed stick.  At the end of it she looked at her watch.

“It’s twelve!  The second post’s in.  Run and see if there are any letters.”

Harriet did not want to go.  “Let’s finish the peas.  There won’t be any letters.”

“No, dear; please go.  I’ll sow the peas, but you shall cover them up—­and mind the birds don’t see ’em!”