n her lap.

"Alan wasn't the name of the people Sir Harry's let to."

"Nonsense, Freddy! You know nothing about it."

"Nonsense yourself! I've this minute seen him. He said to me: 'Ahem!
Honeychurch,'"--Freddy was an indifferent mimic--"'ahem! ahem! I have at
last procured really dee-sire-rebel tenants.' I said, 'ooray, old boy!'
and slapped him on the back."

"Exactly. The Miss Alans?"

"Rather not. More like Anderson."

"Oh, good gracious, there isn't going to be another muddle!" Mrs.
Honeychurch exclaimed. "Do you notice, Lucy, I'm always right? I said
don't interfere with Cissie Villa. I'm always right. I'm quite uneasy at
being always right so often."

"It's only another muddle of Freddy's. Freddy doesn't even know the name
of the people he pretends have taken it instead."

"Yes, I do. I've got it. Emerson."

"What name?"

"Emerson. I'll bet you anything you like."

"What a weathercock Sir Harry is," said Lucy quietly. "I wish I had
never bothered over it at all."

Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe,
whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that THAT was
the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.

Meanwhile the name of the new tenants had diverted Mrs. Honeychurch from
the contemplation of her own abilities.

"Emerson, Freddy? Do you know what Emersons they are?"

"I don't know whether they're any Emersons," retorted Freddy, who was
democratic. Like his sister and like most young people, he was naturally
attracted by the idea of equality, and the undeniable fact that there
are different kinds of Emersons annoyed him beyond measure.

"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