The Squire made room for him to pass with a hearty laugh. "Bless you,
my boy!" said he, "I'm barring out the guest I invited myself, am I?
Walk in--walk in and sit down."

Jerome, half melted by the Squire's genial humor, half disposed still
to be stiffly resentful, hesitated a second; but Miss Camilla also,
for the second time, invited him to enter, with her gentle ceremony,
which was the subtlest flattery he had ever known, inasmuch as it
seemed to set him firmly in his own esteem above his poor estate of
boyhood; and he entered, and seated himself in the place indicated,
at his hostess's right hand, near the little tea-table.

Jerome, hungry boy as he was, having the spicy richness of that
wonderful fruit-cake in his nostrils, noted even before that the
lavender scent of Miss Camilla's garments, which seemed, like a
subtle fragrance of individuality and life itself, to enter his
thoughts rather than his senses. The boy, drawn within this
atmosphere of virgin superiority and gentleness, felt all his
defiance and antagonism towards his newly discovered pride of life
shame him.

The great and just bitterness of wrath against all selfish holders of
riches that was beginning to tincture his whole soul was sweetened
for the time by the proximity of this sweet woman in her silks and
laces and jewels. Not reasoning it out in the least, nor recognizing
his own mental attitude, it was to him as if this graceful creature
had been so endowed by God with her rich apparel and fair
surroundings that she was as much beyond question and envy as a lily
of the field. He did not even raise his eyes to her face, but sat at