Poor Relations

John proclaimed next morning to his ho

would you lik

ry often ask for old boots, don'

rbjections if I give

what

ge when they like to dress theirselves up a bit. He's doing very well, too. His employers

ghted to

after the way her husband behaved hisself, and it's to be hoped Herbert'll tak

at he would have avoided by catchi

of fact. No-in fact I'll be down in the country. I must see after things there, you know," h

grimly; John saw the beech-woods round Ambl

and give a look round yourself, Mrs

ntrude in any way, sir. But i

nsist," John hurr

o get used to being left alone nowa

s, Mrs. Worfolk. I'm a Cockney at

r head and waddled tr

sir?" she turned to ask in accents that seemed to co

a country house? And I suppose the next thing is that James and Beatrice and George and Eleanor will all be offended because I didn't go tearing round to see them the mom

ishing of his new house by ordering from his tailor a variety of country costumes. These Maud, with feminine intuition superimposed on what she would have called her "understanding of valeting," at once produced for his visit to Ambles; John in the pr

boisterously. At any rate, the parlor-maid's comprehension of valeting had apparentl

," she murmured, with a s

re into abstract esthetics and that he had not had the least intention of extracting her opinion about these suits on him; but he felt that an attempt at explanation would em

announced on the last stave o

ed them

books. Perhaps there w

for them, not in your

n't be room in that,

to strain his wrist and when full to break his back, and it contained more parasites of the toilet table and the writing desk than one could have supposed imaginable. These parasites each possessed an abode of such individual shape that leaving them behind made no difference to the number of really us

" John persisted. "Won'

mitted. "It depends what boots you

ed. "I can make a sep

hat we were going to

roper for the books out of which the historical trappings of his Joan o

ped ultimately to receive from Ambles the kind of congratulatory benediction that the library at Church Row always bestowed upon his footsteps. Indeed, if he had not had such an ambition for his country house, he could scarcely have endured to quit even for a week this library, where fires were burning in two grates and where the smoke of his Partaga was haunting, like a complacent ghost, the imperturbable air. John possessed another library at Ambles, but he had not yet had time to do more than hurriedly stock it with the standard works that he felt no country house should be without. His library in London was the outcome of historical research preparatory to writing his romantic plays; and since all works of popular historical interest are bound with a much more lavish profusion of color and ornament even than the works of fiction to which they most nearly approximate, John's shelves outwardly resembled rather a collection of armor than a collection of bo

speration to his brother, James, the critic, "Shakespeare di

ing in a first-class compartment of a London and South-Western railway train; two hours after th

s' struggle to let down the window with the aid of a strap that looked like an Anglica

t that John could not bear to accentuate by argument the outrage that he was offering to this morning of exquisite decline, on which earth seemed to be floating away into

n's sanguine imagination could so often satisfy his ambition; prosperous playwright though he was, he had not yet made nearly enough money to buy a real park. However, in his present character of an eighteenth-century squire he determined, should the film version of The Fall of Babylon turn out successful, to buy a lawny meadow of twenty acres that would add much to the dignity and seclusion of Ambles, the boundaries of which at the back were now overlooked by a herd of fierce Kerry cows who occupied the meadow and during the summer had made John's practice shots with a brassy too much like big-game shooting to be pleasant or safe. After about a mile the avenue came to an end where a narrow

's almost impossible not to believe that Sir Gawai

is time to open the door of the fly with the intention of walking meditatively up the hill i

nd to get a motor," h

imson berry he was very much in the present. For there on the other side of the common, flanked by shelving woods of oak and beech and backed by rising downs on which a milky sky ruffled its breast like a huge s

murmured in a par

ed feeling of depression by supposing that Edith could not by herself have trundled the barrel-shaped vicarage pony all the way from Newton Candover to Ambles, and, finding that the left-hand door of the fly was unexpectedly susceptible to the prompting of its handle, he alighted with such rapidity that not one of his smiling relations could have had any impression but that he was bounding to greet them. The two sisters were so conscious of their ric

dear Johnnie," t

other? What, an

ntly. "We bought it at Threadgale's in Galt

d. "And who helped you to c

mpanied me into Galton; but she wanted

be a demonstrative welcome, prompted by her mother, was rubbing her head against his ribs like a calf against a fence, he had felt he

e back with one hand, and with the other manipulating Harold in such a way as to g

ggesting a covetous maternity. John doubted if Harold felt anything but a desire to escape from being sandwiched between his mother's crape and his uncle's

Edith murmured. "And Laurence has

ther due to its being past his usual luncheon h

ss; as it was, his personality enveloped the scene with a ceremonious dignity that was not less than archidiaconal, an

to John, for whom the sweet damp odors of autumn became a whiff of pious women's veils, while the leaves flu

n air-gun himself. John hailed the announcement almost effusively; it reached him with the kind of relief with which in childhood he had heard the number of the final hym

t something?" Harold went on, has

ily. "Uncle John is tired. And do

shoot at something. And I'm not eati

shoot if he wants

fired, bringing down two leaves from an espalier pear. Everybody applauded him, because everybody felt glad

and was moreover really hungry. His bedroom, dimity draped, had a pleasant rustic simplicity, but he deci

himself. "I shall put in a good month

ice at his elbow inquired. John started; he h

ne of avuncular jocularity and looking down at Harold, who was examining wit

rown," Haro

ded to extend hi

own when they're shot, just as lobs

sho

friend of the gentleman who ke

he

say when-but probably

o shoot elepha

r father used to

he shot t

aps h

gentleman who keeps the

be surprise

was an asplorer. When I'm big I'm going to be an aspl

an to look for his nailbrush, the address of wh

king for, Uncle J

for my nailbr

hy

ean my

they

little grubby after

after a minute he added: "I thought perhaps you were

t town of Galton and visit the local toyshop. It would be an infernal nuisance, but

ill be after tea." The sentence sounded contradictory somehow, a

Harol

by a tap at the door, followed

aimed, as if it were the most sur

's with me,"

s been so looking forward to your arriva

k why I wa

ly, and John made up his mind to

hing you want?" she

his nailbrush

expression of e

hope it hasn

lass bottles. I was just telling Harold th

ent from America," Harold procl

r brother's han

at. It's spoiling him. It really

," he supplemented, and then he announced aloud that he must go int

ith an arch look she paused and s

John wea

added, seriously, "if Uncle John is kind enough to take you into Galton

my air-gun,"

d that the risk would be too great, pulled himself together, and declined the pleasure of his nephew's company on the ground that he

rling," said Hil

le to take my fishin

is poor father,"

Daniel Curtis, when there was another tap at the door, and Frida crackling loudly

ows already. Don't bother him now. He's ti

ilbrush if he like

, and get it

his cousin all down the corridor, evoking complaints of

hout even washing his hands, hurried downstairs trying to look like

te to him, placid as an untouched pudding, sat Grandmama. Laurence said grace without being invited after standing up for a moment with an expression of pained interrogation; Edith accompanied his words by making with her forefinger and thumb a minute cruciform incision

e back in England,"

rippled round the ta

s from our own garden?

, of course. We never trouble the greeng

a bean left,"

e was something terribly suggestive i

iption of her method, for she seldom repeated literally and often not immediately. Sometimes indeed she would wait as long as half an hour before she reissued in the garb of a personal philosophical discovery or

at beans were a favorite dish of poor Papa

s," Harold

too," cried Fr

one of the graver tenor stops in his voice, "we d

at Frida, or rather with a solemn inclination

est of all," continued Har

d wince, looked down his nose at his plat

n't you hear what Uncle

organ begins; one felt that she was inspired by social

new potatoes, and

for asparagus, too, when she cau

st," said John, riding buoyantly upon the ga

e to feel much more hopeful of being able to find suitable presents in Galton for Harold and Frida; and in the silence of exhaustion that succeeded the laughter he broke the news of his having to go into town and dispatch an

gone before I get

es fraught with the unuttered sole

a good deal to talk over. I should suggest driving you in to Galton, but I find it impossible to talk freel

l heart, and said, to cover his relief, that ol

asked

ld's question was one th

," said his mother; and the dinin

hour," said Laurence, dragging the conversation out of t

in eagerly, "it wouldn't

astened to add that an earlier dinner would brin

xplained, "and that," he looked as if he would have liked to add "Frida's bed-time c

ll of roast beef and scarlet-runners, it was decided

nice long morning for his patients and time to smoke his cigar after dinner before he opened the dispensar

ote had scored a hit, embarked upon another about being taken to the Great Exhibition when she was eleven years old, which lasted

ed time after time upon the wisdom he had shown in buying Ambles: he was made to feel

us in his way," Hilda said.

d humming birds at the pantechnicon, the importation of which to Ambles he

ls that his glebe-the value of which by the way has

nything horrid happened to Laurence

d and wife played together

to buy this twenty-acre field we all realize that in doing s

e wise to buy," sai

uggested Edith. "Twenty acres, you see ... well, real

rry poor John with comparative acres-we ar

Harold hit one of them with a slug from his air-gun, when they all began

y," John said, crossl

, though even when they were quiet he never felt on rea

ing to do," Hilda expostulated.

ng at me," Ha

Harold," his Uncle Laurence began, "which

, "but I must be getting along. Thi

cut across the twenty-acre field he waved back cheerfully, as if he th

w jolly it would be to see Miss Hamilton and Miss Merritt coming round the next bend in the road. Later on, he did not bother to include Miss Merritt, and finally he discovered his fancy so steadily fixed upon Miss Hamilton that he was forced to remind himself that Miss Hamilton in such a setting would demand a much higher standard of criticism than Miss Hamilton on th