Excerpt from A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym

[Emma} was just in the act of cutting down some [roses] when she saw Tom approaching with Adam Prince.

'What a charming picture you make, with the roses,' said Adam smoothly.

Emma tried to think of a gracious answer to this rather obvious compliment. Then, before she had been able to produce anything, Tom, suddenly and ridiculously, burst into poetry.

The two divinest things this world has got
A lovely woman in a rural spot. 

There was a brief stunned silence, surely one of dismay, then Emma broke it by laughing. The two men must surely realise that she certainly wasn't lovely, not even pretty.

'Leigh Hunt,' said Tom quickly, attempting to cover up his foolishness. 'Not a good poem.'

He was hardly improving matters -- there had been no need to make that kind of critical judgement. 'I thought of taking a few flowers along to the church,' Emma said. 'Mrs. G. does want things out of people's gardens, doesn't she?'

'I like to watch ladies arranging flowers,' Adam said. 'It was one of the aspects of my calling that I most enjoyed.'

Tom thought this an unusual way of looking on the duties of a parish priest, but made no comment.


From A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym, EP Dutton edition, page 76.