lawn! I have long believed that plants are conscious, but we have
got to exist somehow at each other's expense. Instinct is the only
guide for women; if they begin to reason, they get run away with by
reason; that is what makes fanatics. I won't go so far as to wish
you good sport, but you may as well get all the rabbits you can;
I'll send them round the village, and try to salve my conscience
so."

They talked a little about the books Howard had been recommending,
but Mrs. Graves was bent on making much of Jack.

"I don't get you here often by yourself," she said. "I daren't ask
a modern young man to come and see two old frumps--one old frump, I
mean! But I gather that you have views of your own, Jack, and some
day I shall try to get at them. I suppose that in a small place
like this we all know a great deal more about each other than we
suspect each other of knowing. What a comfort that we have tongues
that we can hold! It wouldn't be possible to live, if we knew that
all the absurdities we pride ourselves on concealing were all
perfectly well known and canvassed by all our friends. However, as
long as we only enjoy each other's faults, and don't go in for
correcting them, we can get on. I hope you don't DISAPPROVE of
people, Jack! That's the hopeless attitude."

"Well, I hate some people," said Jack, "but I hate them so much
that it is quite a pleasure to meet them and to think how infernal
they are; and when it's like that, I should be sorry if they
improved."

"I won't go as far as that," said Howard. "The most I do is to be