Rachel stood a moment with wide nostrils and round eyes; the look hardly
lasted longer, and she said no more, but she was aware that Morna had
made some answer to her question.
"What did you say?" inquired Rachel, turning politely to her visitor.
"I said they were blue gums from Australia."
Rachel made no immediate comment; secretive she might have to be, but
to a deliberate pretence she would not stoop. So she did not even say,
"Indeed!" but merely, after a pause, "You are something of a botanist
yourself, then, Mrs. Woodgate?" For they had been talking of the gardens
and of their history as they walked.
"I?" laughed Morna. "I only wish I was; but I happen to remember Mr.
Steel telling me that one day when we were here last summer."
Rachel opened her eyes again, and her lips with them; but instead of
speaking she went to the nearest gum-tree and picked a spray of the
lacklustre leaves. "I like the smell of them," she said, as they went
on; and the little incident left no impression upon Morna's mind.
Yet presently she perceived that Mrs. Steel had some color after all--at
the moment Rachel happened to be smelling her gum-leaves--and that she
was altogether prettier than Morna had fancied hitherto.
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