onel Clay's impersonations, and Mrs. Clay's too--for I
suppose I must call her so. They were not mere outer disguises;
they were finished pieces of dramatic study. Those two people were
an actor and actress, as well as a pair of rogues; and in both
their roles they were simply inimitable.

As a rule, Charles is by no means polite to casual trespassers on
the Seldon estate; they get short shrift and a summary ejection.
But on this occasion he had a reason for being courteous, and he
approached the lady with a bow of recognition. "Lovely day," he
said, "isn't it? Such belts on the sea, and the heather smells
sweet. You are stopping at the inn, I fancy?"

"Yes," the lady answered, looking up at him with a charming smile.
("I know that smile," Charles whispered to me. "I have succumbed to
it too often.") "We're stopping at the inn, and my husband is doing
a little geology on the hill here. I hope Sir Charles Vandrift won't
come and catch us. He's so down upon trespassers. They tell us at
the inn he's a regular Tartar."

("Saucy minx as ever," Charles murmured to me. "She said it on
purpose.") "No, my dear madam," he continued, aloud; "you have
been quite misinformed. _I_ am Sir Charles Vandrift; and I am _not_
a Tartar. If your husband is a man of science I respect and admire
him. It is geology that has made me what I am to-day." And he drew
himself up proudly. "We owe to it the present development of South
African mining."

The lady blushed as one seldom sees a mature woman blush--but
exactly as I had seen Madame Picardet and White Heather. "Oh, I'm
so sorry," she said, in a confused way that recalled Mrs. Granton.
"Forgive my hasty speech. I--I didn't know you."

("She did," Charles whispered. "But let that pass.") "Oh, don't
think of it again; so many people disturb the birds, don't you know,
that we're obliged in self-defence to warn trespassers sometimes off
our lovely mountains. But I do it with regret--with profound regret.
I admire the--er--the beauties of Nature myself; and, therefore,
I desire that all others should have the freest possible access
to them--possible, that is to say, consistently with the superior
claims of Property."

"I see," the lady replied, looking up at him quaintly. "I admire
your wish, though not your reservation. I've just been reading
those sweet lines of Wordsworth's--

And O, ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves.

I suppose you