Mrs. Colwood was keeping
tea-cakes hot, and building up a blazing fire with logs of beech-wood.
When she had seated her guests, Diana put the snow-drops she had
gathered into an empty vase, and looked round her happily, as though now
she had put the last touch to all her preparations. She talked readily
of her cousin's coming to Mrs. Roughsedge; and she inquired minutely of
Hugh when the next meet was to be, that she might take her guest to
see it.
"Fanny will be just as new to it all as I!" she said. "That's so nice,
isn't it?" Then she offered Mrs. Roughsedge cake, and looked at her
askance with a hanging head. "Have you heard--about the Vicar?"
Mrs. Roughsedge admitted it.
"I did lose my temper," said Diana, repentantly. "But _really!_--papa
used to tell me it was a sign of weakness to say violent things you
couldn't prove. Wasn't it Lord Shaftesbury that said some book he didn't
like was 'vomited out of the jaws of hell'? Well, the Vicar said things
very like that. He did indeed!"
"Oh no, my dear, no!" cried Mrs. Roughsedge, disturbed by the quotation,
even, of such a remark. Hugh Roughsedge grinned. Diana,
however, insisted.
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