"contrary," when they have to deal with it in animals. She would insist
on going to that tea-party; he knew it just as well before she spoke as
after she had spoken. If Dick had said he wanted to go and her father
had seconded his wishes, she would have insisted on staying at home. It
was no great matter, her father said to himself, after all; very likely
it would amuse her; the Widow was a lively woman enough,--perhaps a
little comme il ne faut pas socially, compared with the Thorntons and
some other families; but what did he care for these petty village
distinctions?

Elsie spoke.

"I mean to go. You must go with me, Dudley. You may do as you like,
Dick."

That settled the Dudley-mansion business, of course. They all three
accepted, as fortunately did all the others who had been invited.

Hyacinth Cottage was a pretty place enough, a little too much choked
round with bushes, and too much overrun with climbing-roses, which, in
the season of slugs and rose-bugs, were apt to show so brown about the
leaves and so coleopterous about the flowers, that it might be questioned
whether their buds and blossoms made up for these unpleasant animal
combinations,--especially as the smell of whale-oil soap was very
commonly in the ascendant over that of the roses. It had its patch of
grass called "the lawn," and its glazed closet known as "the
conservatory," according to that system of harmless fictions
characteristic of the rural imagination and shown in the names applied to
many familiar objects. The interior of the cottage was more tasteful and
ambitious than that of the ordinary two-story dwellings. In place of the
prevailing hair-cloth covered furniture, the visitor had the satisfaction
of seating himself upon a chair covered with some of the Widow's
embroidery, or a sofa luxurious with soft caressing plush. The sporting
tastes of the late Major showed in various prints on the wall: Herring's
"Plenipotentiary," the "red bullock" of the '34 Derby; "Cadland" and "The
Colonel;" "Crucifix;" "West-Australian," fastest of modern racers; and
among native celebrities, ugly, game old "Boston," with his straight neck
and ragged hips; and gray "Lady Suffolk," queen, in her day, not of the
turf but of the track, "extending" herself till she measured a rod, more
or less, skimming along within a yard of the ground, her legs opening and
shutting under her with a snap, like the four blades of a compound
jack-knife.

These picture