As there were no hot-house plants, the temperature was very cool, compared with the reeking oven they had escaped; and a little fountain bubbled, and fed a little meandering gutter that trickled away among the ferns; it ran crystal clear over little bright pebbles and shells.

It did not always run, you understand; but Miss Lucas turned a secret tap, and started it.
"Oh, how heavenly!" said Rosa, with a sigh of relief; "and how good of you to bring me here!" "Yes; by rights I ought to have waited till you fainted.

But there is no making acquaintance among all those people.

Mamma will ask such crowds; one is like a fly in a glue-pot." Miss Lucas had good nature, smartness, and animal spirits; hence arose a vivacity and fluency that were often amusing, and passed for very clever.

Reserve she had none; would talk about strangers, or friends, herself, her mother, her God, and the last buffoon-singer, in a breath.
At a hint from Rosa, she told her who the lady in the pink dress was, and the lady in the violet velvet, and so on; for each lady was defined by her dress, and, more or less, quizzed by this show-woman, not exactly out of malice, but because it is smarter and more natural to decry than to praise, and a little medisance is the spice to gossip, belongs to it, as mint sauce to lamb.