The Dull Miss Archinard Part 4

"I don't think mine are as good. Won't you come some day to Allersley Manor and compare?"

"I should like to very much."

"Then you and Miss Katherine shall be formally invited to tea, with the understanding that afterwards the strawberry beds are to be invaded."

"I should like to very much," Hilda repeated.

"Hullo! Don't make me feel a pig! Eat some yourself," said Odd, who had finished one handful.

"No, no, I picked them for you."

Odd took her disengaged hand in his as they walked on again, Hilda resisting at first.

"It is so sticky."

"I don't mind that: it is very generous." She laughed at the extravagance.

"And what do you do all day besides swimming?" Odd asked.

"We have lessons with our governess. She is strict, but a splendid teacher. Katherine is quite a first-rate Latin scholar."

"Is Katherine fond of Chaucer?"

"Katherine cares more for science and--and philosophy." Hilda spoke with a respectful gravity. "That's why she called her dogs Darwin and Spencer. She hasn't read any of Spencer yet, but of course he is a great philosopher. She knows that, and she has read a good deal of a big book by Darwin, 'The Origin of Species,' you know."

"Yes, I know." Odd found Katherine even more startling than her sister.

"I tried to read it, but it was so confusing--about selection and cabbages--I don't see how cabbages _can_ select, do you?" Hilda's voice held a reminiscent vagueness. "Katherine says that she did not care for it _much_, but she thought she ought to look through it if she wanted a foundation; she is very keen on foundations, and she says Darwin is the foundation-key--or corner-stone--no, keystone to the arch of modern science--at least she did not say so, but she read me that from her journal."

"Oh! Katherine wrote that, did she?"

"Yes; but you mustn't think that Katherine is a blue-stocking."

Something in Odd's tone made Hilda fear misunderstanding. "She loves sports of all kinds, and fun. She goes across country as well as any woman--that is what Lord Mainwaring said of her last winter during fox-hunting. She isn't afraid of anything."

"And what else do you do besides lessons?"

"Well, I read and walk; there are such famous walks all about here, walks in woods and on hills. I don't care for roads, do you? And I stay with mamma and read to her when she is tired."

"And Katherine?"

"She is more with papa." In her heart Hilda said: "He loves her best,"

but of that she could not speak, even to this new friend who seemed already so near; to no one could she hint of that ache in her heart of which jealousy formed no part, for it was natural that papa should love Katherine best, that every one should; she was so gay and courageous; but though it was natural that Katherine should be loved best, it was hard to be loved least.

"You are by yourself a good deal, then?" said Odd. "Do you walk by yourself, too?"

"Yes, with the dogs. I used to have grandmamma, you know; she died a year ago."

"Oh, yes! Mrs. Archinard's mother."

Hilda nodded; her grasp on Odd's hand tightened and they walked in silence. Odd remembered the fine portrait of a lady in the drawing-room; he had noticed its likeness and unlikeness to Mrs. Archinard; a delicate face, but with an Emersonian expression of self-reliance, a puritan look of stanchness and responsibility.

CHAPTER IV

On the way home, cool evening shadows slanting across the road, Alicia declared that she had really enjoyed herself.

"Captain Archinard is quite jolly. He has seen everybody and everything under the sun. He is most entertaining, and Lord Allan is remarkably uncallow."

"He thinks of standing for Parliament next year. A nice, steady, honest young fellow. How do you like the Archinards, Peter?"

"The child--Hilda--is a dear child."

"She is awfully pretty," said Alicia, who could afford to be generous; "I like that colorless type."

"She is delicate, I am afraid," said Mary.

"She has the mouth of a Botticelli Madonna and the eyes of a Gainsborough; you know the portrait of Sheridan's wife at Dulwich?"

Alicia had never been to Dulwich. Mary a.s.sented.

"The other one--the ugly one--is very clever," Alicia went on; she was in a good temper evidently. Not that Alicia was ever exactly bad-tempered. "She said some very clever things and looked more."

"She is too clever perhaps," Mary remarked. "As for Mrs. Archinard, I should like to slap her. I think that my conventionality is of a tolerant order, but Mrs. Archinard's efforts at aesthetic originality make me feel grimly conventional."

"Mary! Mary! how delightful to hear such uncharitable remarks from you.

_I_ should rather like to slap her too, though she struck me as awfully conventional."

"Oh, she is, practically. It is the artistic _argot_ that bores one so much."

"She is awfully self-satisfied too. Dear me, Peter, I wish we had driven after all. I hate the next half-mile. It is just uphill enough to be irritating--fatigue without realizing exactly the cause of it. Why didn't we drive, Peter?"

"I thought we all preferred walking. You are a very energetic young person as a rule."

"Not for tiresome country roads. They should be got over as quickly as possible."

"Well, we will cut through the beech-woods as we came."

"Oh dear," Alicia yawned, "how tired I am already of those tiresome beech-woods. I wish it were autumn and that the hunting had begun.

Captain Archinard gives me glowing accounts, and promises me a lead for the first good run. We must fill the house with people then, Peter."

"The house shall be filled to overflowing. Perhaps you would like some one now. Mrs. Laughton and her girls; you like them, don't you?"

Alicia wrinkled up her charming nose.

"Can't say I do. I've stopped with them too much perhaps. They bore me.

I am afraid no one would come just now, everything is so gay in London.