Mrs.Seaton was soon engaged in giving the vicar advice on his parochial affairs, an experience which generally, ended by the appearance of certain truculent elements in one of the mildest of men.

So Robert was free to turn to his girl neighbor and ask her what people meant by calling the Lakes rainy.
'I understand it is pouring at Oxford.

To-day your sky has been without a cloud, and your rivers are running dry.' 'And you have mastered our climate in twenty-four hours, like the tourists--isn't it ?--that do the Irish question in three weeks ?' 'Not the answer of a bread-and-butter miss,' he thought to himself, amused, 'and yet what a child it looks.' He threw himself into a war of words with her, and enjoyed it extremely.
Her brilliant coloring, her gestures as fresh and untamed as the movements of the leaping river outside, the mixture in her of girlish pertness and ignorance with the promise of a remarkable general capacity, made her a most taking, provoking creature.

Mrs.
Thornburgh--much recovered in mind since Dr.Baker had praised the pancakes by which Sarah had sought to prove to her mistress the superfluity of naughtiness involved in her recourse to foreign cooks--watched the young man and maiden with a face which grew more and more radiant.

The conversation in the garden had not pleased her.