more genial
mood. Only once was there anything approaching friction, and then it was
Hadria herself who caused it.

"Yes, we all flatter ourselves that we are observing life, when we are
merely noting the occasions when some musty old notion of ours happens,
by chance, to get fulfilled."

Hubert Temperley at once roused Miss Du Prel's interest by the large
stores of information that he had to pour forth on the history of the
district, from its earliest times to the present. He recalled the days
when these lands that looked so smooth and tended had been mere wastes
of marsh and forest.

How quickly these great changes were accomplished! Valeria stood on the
brow of a wide corn-field, looking out over the sleeping country. A
century, after all, was not much more than one person's lifetime, yet in
scarcely nine of these--nine little troubled lifetimes--what incredible
things had occurred in this island of ours! How did it all come about?
"Not assuredly," Valeria remarked with sudden malice, "by taking things
as they stood, and making the best of them with imbecile impatience. If
everyone had done that, what sort of an England should I have had
stretching before my eyes at this moment?"

"You would not have been here to see," said Hadria, lazily rolling
stones down the hill with her foot. "We should all of us have been
dancing round some huge log-fire on the borders of a primeval forest,
and instead of browsing on salads, as we did to-day, we should be
sustaining ourselves on the unholy nourishment of boiled parent or
grilled aunt."

Mr. Temperley's refined appearance and manner seemed to raise an
incarnate protest against this revolting picture. For some occult
reason, the imagination of all was at work especially and exclusively on
the figure of that polished gentleman in war-paint and feathers,
sporting round the cauldron that contained the boiled earthly remains of
his relations.

Mr. Fleming betrayed the common thought by remarking that it would be
very becoming to him.

"Ah! I wish we _were_ all savages in feathers and war-paint, dancing on
the edge of some wild forest, with nothing but the sea and the sky for
limits!"

Miss Du Prel surprised her audience by this earnest aspiration.

"Do you feel inclined to revert?" Hadria enquired. "Because if so, I
shall be glad to join you."

"I think there _is_ a slight touch of the savage about Mrs. Temperley,"
observed Fleming pensively. "I mean, don't you know--o