SO IDLEHURST : 



hour, to Alice's time on this side ; Mrs. Lydia from 

 the Rectory ; Mrs. Kitty French, a neighbour of mine 

 beyond the Common ; and her son Gervase, at Christ 

 Church, who should have been back in St. Aldates, 

 compounding between Lit. Hum. and Summer Term, 

 but that a sprain kept him with us for a week 

 beyond the vacation. Mrs. Kitty is a year or two 

 younger than Mrs. Lydia, and pleasantly contrast- 

 able in many ways. She shows traces of having 

 been very pretty, where there are signs in the other 

 of more recondite beauty ; she is as delightfully 

 unwise as her friend is memorably sage ; her prattling 

 shallows are none the less silvery for the thought 

 of Mrs. Lydia's quiet deeps. On that smooth brow, 

 where the black-grey hair breaks irrevocably in 

 little waves and rings, into those wide-set eyes 

 laughing, ever so little short-sighted trouble comes 

 rarely and not for long. 



The tea-table was set on a small level semi-cirque 

 of turf under the high bank that skirts the fir-clump ; 

 a corner that treasures every sunbeam that falls, and 

 is only uninhabitable on very sad days indeed. 



Alice, as became birthday honours, poured out 

 tea, with Kitty second in command. There seemed 

 to be some sort of coolness between the two ladies ; 

 but Gervase, who is of that nature which all dogs 



