'When I was here late in the spring,' he said, 'this ash was only
just budding, though everything else seemed in full leaf.'

'An ash, is it?' murmured Marian. 'I didn't know. I think an oak
is the only tree I can distinguish. Yet,' she added quickly, 'I
knew that the ash was late; some lines of Tennyson come to my
memory.'

'Which are those?'

'Delaying, as the tender ash delays

To clothe herself when all the woods are green,

somewhere in the "Idylls."'

'I don't remember; so I won't pretend to--though I should do so
as a rule.'

She looked at him oddly, and seemed about to laugh, yet did not.

'You have had little experience of the country?' Jasper
continued.

'Very little. You, I think, have known it from childhood?'

'In a sort of way. I was born in Wattleborough, and my people
have always lived here. But I am not very rural in temperament. I
have really no friends here; either they have lost interest in
me, or I in them. What do you think of the girls, my sisters?'