..
[Behind the dosed curtains a girl's voice is heard singing a simple
country song.
There! they've begun ... because I've been so long. That's her song. She
sings as she goes through the rooms a-dusting them. And when she sings,
little wild flowers grow up through the chinks of the boards.
UNCLE EDWARD. I suppose they are ready.
[She pokes her head between the curtains. Uncle Edward has really
melted to this last touch. He is wreathed in smiles.
She's a wonderful child. Knows the whole thing backwards. Thinks of new
bits for herself! I call to mind her mother saying ...
[Alice has turned back.
ALICE. Ready when we've counted twenty.
UNCLE EDWARD. Right.
[Alice counts: you can see her lips move. Uncle Edward hums his
counting as an accompaniment to the little song.
* * * * *
And so we have got to the Eighteenth Century. And we're to have a comedy of
manners, and a nice study of clothes. All rather shapely; for it contains
a real Beau, and the only valet who was ever a hero, and the only hero who
ever had Mercury to valet him.
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