“I trust they are the right sort of person. All right, Lucy”—she was sitting up again—“I see you looking down your nose and thinking your mother’s a snob. But there is a right sort and a wrong sort, and it’s affectation to pretend there isn’t.”
“Emerson’s a common enough name,” Lucy remarked.
She was gazing sideways. Seated on a promontory herself, she could see the pine-clad promontories descending one beyond another into the Weald. The further one descended the garden, the more glorious was this lateral view.
“I was merely going to remark, Freddy, that I trusted they were no relations of Emerson the philosopher, a most trying man. Pray, does that satisfy you?”
“Oh, yes,” he grumbled. “And you will be satisfied, too, for they’re friends of Cecil; so”—elaborate irony—“you and the other country families will be able to call in perfect safety.”
“ Cecil? ” exclaimed Lucy.
“Don’t be rude, dear,” said his mother placidly. “Lucy, don’t screech. It’s a new bad habit you’re getting into.”
“But has Cecil—”
“Friends of Cecil’s,” he repeated, “ ‘and so really dee-sire-rebel. Ahem! Honeychurch, I have just telegraphed to them.’ ”
She got up from the grass.
It was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much. While she believed that her snub about the Miss Alans came from Sir Harry Otway, she had borne it like a good girl. She might well “screech” when