She
seemed in a ruminating posture, soothed, perhaps, by the murmurs of the
busy tribe around her to abstraction, though not to slumber.
Lucy undid the latch of the little garden gate, and solicited the old
woman's attention. "My father, Alice, is come to see you."
"He is welcome, Miss Ashton, and so are you," said the old woman,
turning and inclining her head towards her visitors.
"This is a fine morning for your beehives, mother," said the Lord
Keeper, who, struck with the outward appearance of Alice, was somewhat
curious to know if her conversation would correspond with it.
"I believe so, my lord," she replied; "I feel the air breathe milder
than of late."
"You do not," resumed the statesman, "take charge of these bees
yourself, mother? How do you manage them?"
"By delegates, as kings do their subjects," resumed Alice; "and I am
fortunate in a prime minister. Here, Babie."
She whistled on a small silver call which ung around her neck, and which
at that time was sometimes used to summon domestics, and Babie, a girl
of fifteen, made her appearance from the hut, not altogether so cleanly
arrayed as she would probably have been had Alice had the use of her
yees, but with a greater air of neatness than was upon the whole to have
been expected.
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