Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/244

Rh "I hope we shall see her at dinner."

"She dines in her own room, but she comes into the drawing-room after dinner."

After this nothing seemed important to Jane except getting Mr. Dix away from Miss Antrobus. She did it by suggesting that they should all go and see the sundial, and then very hastily among the currant-bushes she said to Dix:

"You'll see my aunt to-night. Don't let anyone know you haven't seen her before."

"I understand," he said. "Rochester told me." "Oh, did he?" said Jane. "All right, that's all I wanted to say. That's why I cut you oft from Miss Antrobus. It would be kind of you to edge back to her now. You seem to be the only one of us that she's taken to."

"She's rather wonderful, isn't she?" said Dix. "There's a sort of radiant goodness in her face."

Jane, a little humbled, had not seen it, but could not gainsay it.

"It's a strong face, and yet—I don't know. It looks to me as though she had been transplanted."

"Transplanted?"

"You know how different plants are in different environments. Look at those tall, splendid, gipsy roses there—on the Sussex Downs in a dry season they're sometimes not an inch high. Lots of people got transplanted in the war."

"Yes," said Jane, adding, for the second time that day, "Lucy and I didn't do anything. We were at school. No transplanting for us."

"Some flowers don't need it," said Mr. Dix.