often wiped his red, innocent face, and looked not a little
distressed; but the lady, although as stout as he, did not seem to
suffer, perhaps because she was sheltered by a very large bonnet After
a silence of a good many minutes, she was the first to speak.

"I can't say but I'm disappointed in the olives, Thomas," she
remarked. "They ain't much to keep the sun off you!"

"They wouldn't look bad along a brookside in Essex!" returned her
husband. "Here they do seem a bit out of place!"

"Well, but, poor things! how are they to help it--with only a trayful
of earth under their feet! If you planted a priest on a terrace he
would soon be as thin as they!"

They had just passed a very stout priest, in a low broad hat, and
cassock, and she laughed merrily at her small joke. They were an
English country parson and his wife, abroad for the first time in
their now middle-aged lives, and happy as children just out of
school. Incapable of disliking anybody, there was no unkindness in
Mrs. Porson's laughter.

"I don't see," she resumed, "how they ever can have a picnic in such a
country!"

"Why not?"

"There's no place to sit down!"

"Here's a whole hill-side!"