"Is barracks like the workhouse, Aunt Catherine?" he asked.
"A good deal like the workhouse," said Aunt Catherine. Then she went
on--"I told her Mother I could not begin calling at the barracks.
There are some very low streets close by, and my coachman said he
couldn't answer for his horses with bugles, and perhaps guns, going
off when you least expect them. I told her I would ask them to dinner;
and I did, but they were engaged. Well, yesterday I changed my mind,
and I told Harness that I meant to go to the barracks, and the horses
would have to take me. So we started. When we were going along the
upper road, between the high hedges, what do you think I saw?"
Chris had been going on with his pudding again, but he paused to make
a guess.
"A large cannon, just going off?"
"No. If I'd seen that, you wouldn't have seen any more of me. I saw
masses of wild clematis scrambling everywhere, so that the hedge
looked as if somebody had been dressing it up in tufts of feathers."
As she said this, Lady Catherine held out her hand to me across the
table very kindly. She has a fat hand, covered with rings, and I put
my hand into it.
"And what do you think came into my head?" she asked.
"Toast and water," said Chris, maliciously.
"No, you monkey. I began to think of hedgeflowers, and travellers, and
Traveller's Joy.
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