Some people never really _have_ anything. It is not only that they can
get no good out of things (that is common even among those who are able
both to have and to hold), but that they don't know how to reign over
their possessions and appropriate them.
Their chattels appear to know this, and despise them; their dogs run
after other men; the best branches of their rose-trees climb over the
garden-wall, and people who smell at the flowers there appear to supply
a reason for any roses being planted inside. Such people always know
their weak point, and spend their own money as if they had stolen it.
The little Mortimers were not related to them. Here was a piece of
ground which nobody cultivated; it manifestly wanted owners; they took
it, weeded it, and flung out all the weeds into Mrs. Walker's garden.
The morning was warm; a south wind was fluttering the half-unfolded
leaf-buds, and spreading abroad the soft odour of violets and primroses
which covered the sunny slopes.
John's children, when they came in at Mrs. Walker's drawing-room window,
brought some of this delicate fragrance of the spring upon their hair
and clothes.
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