“Alda submits to the inevitable,” he said. “Don’t appear as if she had a choice.”
“Only mention the alleviations. No, you are not to get up yet. There’s no place for you to sit in, and the east wind is not greatly mitigated by the sea air. Shall I send Anna to read to you?”
“In half-an-hour, if she is ready then; meantime, those two books, if you please.”
She handed him his Greek Testament and Bishop Andrews, and repaired to the drawing-room, where she found Anna exulting in the decorations brought from home, and the flowers brought in from an itinerant barrow.
“I have been setting down what they must send us from home--your own chair and table, and the Liberty rugs, and the casts of St. Cecilia and little St. Cyrillus for those bare corners, and I am going out for a terra-cotta vase.”
“Oh, my dear, the room is charming; but don’t let us get too dependent on pretty things. They demoralize as much or more than ugly ones.”
“Do you mean that they are a luxury? Is it not right to try to have everything beautiful?”
“Yes, my dear, I really get confused sometimes as to what is mere lust of the eye, and what is regard to whatever things are lovely. I believe the principle is really in each case to try whether the high object or the gratification of the senses should stand first.”
“Well,” said Anna, laughing, “I suppose it is a high object not to alienate Gerald, as would certainly be done by the culture of the ugly--”
“Or rather of that which pretends to be the reverse, and is only fashion,” said her aunt, who meantime was moving about, adding nameless grace by her touch to all Anna’s arrangements.
“May I send for the things then?” said Anna demurely.
“Oh yes, certainly; and you had better get the study arm-chair for your uncle. There is nothing so comfortable here. But I have news for you. What do you say to having little Adrian here, to go to school with the Merrifield boy?”
“What fun! what fun! How delicious!” cried the sister, springing about like a child.
“I suspected that the person to whom he would give most trouble would feel it most pleasure.”
“You don’t know what a funny, delightful child he is! You didn’t see him driving all the little girls in a team four-in-hand.”
It would be much to say that Mrs. Grinstead was enchanted by this proof of his charms; but they were interrupted by Marshall, the polite, patronizing butler, bringing in a card. Miss Mohun would be glad to know how Mr. Underwood was, and whether there was anything that she could do for Mrs. Grinstead.