CHAPTER XII.
"Try my salts, dear Mary," said Miss Crewys, hastening to apply the remedies which were always to be found in her black velvet reticule.
"I blame myself," said the canon, distressfully--"I blame myself.

I should have insisted on breaking the news to her gently." Lady Mary smiled upon them all.

"On the contrary," she said, "I was offering, not a moment ago, to take Peter round and show him the improvements.

We have been so much occupied with each other that he has not had time to look round him." "I wish he may think them improvements, my love," said Lady Belstone.
Miss Crewys, joyously scenting battle, hastened to join forces with her sister.
"We are far from criticizing any changes your dear mother may have been induced to make," she said; "but as your Aunt Isabella has frequently observed to me, what _can_ a Londoner know of landscape gardening ?" "A Londoner ?" said Peter.
"Your guardian, my boy," said the canon, nervously.

"He has slightly opened out the views; that is all your good aunt is intending to say." Peter's good aunt opened her mouth to contradict this assertion indignantly, but Lady Mary broke in with some impatience.
"I do not mean the trees.