Mrs. Brocklehurst focussed her attention on Janet, through the lorgnette, but let it fall immediately, smiling on her brightly, persuasively.

“How d’ye do?” she said, stretching forth a slender arm and taking the girl’s somewhat reluctant hand.  “Do come and sit down beside me and tell me about everything here.  I’m sure you know—­you look so intelligent.”

Her friend from Silliston shot at Janet an amused but fortifying glance and left them, going down to the tables.  Somehow that look of his helped to restore in her a sense of humour and proportion, and her feeling became one of curiosity concerning this exquisitely soigneed being of an order she had read about, but never encountered—­an order which her newly acquired views declared to be usurpers and parasites.  But despite her palpable effort to be gracious perhaps because of it—­Mrs. Brocklehurst had an air about her that was disconcerting!  Janet, however, seemed composed as she sat down.

“I’m afraid I don’t know very much.  Maybe you will tell me something, first.”

“Why, certainly,” said Mrs. Brocklehurst, sweetly when she had got her breath.

“Who is that man?” Janet asked.

“Whom do you mean—­Mr. Insall?”

“Is that his name?  I didn’t know.  I’ve seen him twice, but he never told me.”

“Why, my dear, do you mean to say you haven’t heard of Brooks Insall?”

“Brooks Insall.”  Janet repeated the name, as her eyes sought his figure between the tables.  “No.”

“I’m sure I don’t know why I should have expected you to hear of him,” declared the lady, repentantly.  “He’s a writer—­an author.”  And at this Janet gave a slight exclamation of pleasure and surprise.  “You admire writers?  He’s done some delightful things.”

“What does he write about?” Janet asked.

“Oh, wild flowers and trees and mountains and streams, and birds and humans—­he has a wonderful insight into people.”

Janet was silent.  She was experiencing a swift twinge of jealousy, of that familiar rebellion against her limitations.

“You must read them, my dear,” Mrs. Brocklehurst continued softly, in musical tones.  “They are wonderful, they have such distinction.  He’s walked, I’m told, over every foot of New England, talking to the farmers and their wives and—­all sorts of people.”  She, too, paused to let her gaze linger upon Insall laughing and chatting with the children as they ate.  “He has such a splendid, `out-door’ look don’t you think?  And he’s clever with his hands he bought an old abandoned farmhouse in Silliston and made it all over himself until it looks as if one of our great-great-grandfathers had just stepped out of it to shoot an Indian only much prettier.  And his garden is a dream.  It’s the most unique place I’ve ever known.”

Janet blushed deeply as she recalled how she had mistaken him for a carpenter:  she was confused, overwhelmed, she had a sudden longing to leave the place, to be alone, to think about this discovery.  Yet she wished to know more.