“That I will; we have none good enough for her here.”

“And, David, tea under the catalpa, as we always do on fine nights.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Ah! but I do.  These fine ladies are all for novelties.  Now I’m much mistaken if this one has ever had her tea out of doors in all her born days.  What! do you think our little stuffy room would be any treat to her, after the drawing-room at Font Abbey?  Come, you be off till half-past five; you’ll fidget yourself and fidget me else.”

David recognized her superiority, obeyed and vanished.

Eve, having got rid of him, showed none of the insouciance she had recommended.  She darted into the kitchen, bared her arms, and made wheaten cakes with unequaled rapidity, the servant looking on with demure admiration all the while.  These put into the oven, she got her keys and put out the silver teapot, cream jug and sugar basin, things not used every day, I can tell you; item, the best old china tea service; item, some rare tea, of which David had brought home a small quantity from China.  At six o’clock Miss Fountain came; a footman marched twenty yards behind her.  She dismissed him at the door, and Eve invited her at once into the garden.  There David joined them, his heart beating violently.  She put out her hand kindly and calmly, and shook hands with him in the most unembarrassed way imaginable.  At the touch of her soft hand every fiber in him thrilled and the color rushed into his face.  At this a faint blush tinged her own, but no more than the warm welcome she was receiving might account for.

They seated her in a comfortable chair under the catalpa.  Presently out came a nice, clean maid, her white neck half hidden, half revealed, by plain, unfigured muslin worn where the frock ended.  She put the tea things on the table, and courtesied to Lucy, who returned her salute by a benignant smile.  Out came another stouter one with the kettle, hung it from a hoop between two stout sticks, and lighted a fire she had laid underneath, retiring with a parting look at the kettle as soon as it hissed.  Then returned maid one with bread, and wheaten cakes, and fruit, butter nice and hard from the cellar, and yellow cream, and went off smiling.

A gentle zeal seemed to animate these domestics, as if they, also, in relative proportions, gave the fete, or at least contributed good will.  Lucy’s quick eye caught this.  It was new to her.

The tea was soon made, and its Oriental fragrance mingled with the other odors that filled the balmy air.  Gay golden broken lights flickered in patches on the table, the china cups, the ladies’ dresses, and the grass, all but in one place, where the cool deep shadow lay undisturbed around the foot of the tree-stem.  Looking up to see whence the flickering gold came that sprinkled her white hand, Lucy saw one of the loveliest and commonest things in nature.  The sky was blue—­the sun fiery—­the