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A call at Myrtlewood was formidable from the bear-garden sounds, and delicate as Lady Temple was considered to be, unable to walk or bear fatigue, she never appeared to be incommoded by the uproar in which she lived, and had even been seen careering about the nursery, or running about the garden, in a way that Grace and Rachel thought would tire a strong woman.
"And I must go some time or other," she said to Colonel Keith, "so it had better be when you are all here to make Myrtlewood cheerful, and I can be of most use to poor Jane! I do think dear Lady Temple is much more full of life and brightness now!"
Alison Williams, thinking it far to walk either to the Homestead or Myrtlewood before church, proposed to Grace to come home with her, an offer that was thankfully accepted, with merely the scruple whether she should disturb the invalid. "Oh, no, it would be a great pleasure; I always wish we could get more change and variety for her on Sunday."
Then came the rain, and the result was that the lawn of Myrtlewood became too sloppy for the most ardent devotees of croquet; indeed, as Bessie said, the great charm of the sport was that one could not play it above eight months in the year.
Every one knows how the afternoon croquet match on the Myrtlewood Lawn became an institution, though with some variation in the observers thereof, owing to the exigencies of calls, rides, and Ermine Williams's drive, which Lady Temple took care should happen at least twice a week.
He had written, in the name of his brother, to secure a cottage of gentility of about the same calibre as Myrtlewood, newly completed by a speculator on one of the few bits of ground available for building purposes.
"Gone to Avoncester!" exclaimed Rachel, who had walked from church to Myrtlewood with Alison. "Mamma is gone to meet the Major!" cried three of the lesser boys, rushing upon them in full cry; then Leoline, facing round, "Not the major, he is lieutenant-colonel now Colonel Keith, hurrah!" "What what do you mean? Speak rationally, Leoline, if you can."
Curtis, in her uncertainty whether to sanction the proceedings and qualify them, or to make a protest dreadful to herself, and more dreadful to Fanny, yielded the point when she found herself not backed up by her energetic daughter, and the cavalcade almost daily set forth from Myrtlewood, and was watched with eyes of the greatest vexation, if not by kind Mrs. Curtis, by poor Mr.
Very beautiful, though adventurous, was the walk now on the brow of the steep cliff, looking down on the water or on little bays of shingle, now through bits of thicket that held out brambles to entangle the long tresses streaming on their shoulders; always in the brisk morning air, that filled them with strength and spirit, laughing, joking, calling to one another and to Conrade's little dog, that, like every other creature, had attached itself to Bessie, and had followed her from Myrtlewood that morning, to the vexation of Rachel, who had no love for dogs in their early youth.
"I thought it due to Lady Temple to tell him exactly how she regarded you." "Yes, Ermine, and it is due to tell others also. I cannot go on on these terms, either here or at Myrtlewood, unless the true state of the case is known. If you will not let me be a married man, I must be an engaged one, either to you or to the little Banksia."
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