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his rare approval. He said she was a sensible woman: no nambypamby nonsense about her! He wished he could say the same of some others he might mention.
    In this instance Miss Trent responded only with a slight smile, which caused him to say, in a threatening tone: ‘Don’t tell me you are in raptures over this Pink of the Ton!’
    That drew a laugh from her. ‘No, how should I be? I am past the age of falling into raptures, sir!’
    ‘Gammon! Chit of a girl!’ he growled.
    ‘Six-and-twenty!’
    ‘Ay, so you may be: exactly what I thought! Wouldn’t signify if you was six-and-fifty, either. Look at my wife! Killed with delight because this chuckfarthing fellow is coming amongst us! Means to give a party in his honour, if you please! None of your pot-luck, mind! Oh, no! Shouldn’t wonder if she sends out her cards for a turtle-dinner, and has a waltzing-ball to round the thing off in style! Ay, you may laugh, miss! Don’t blame you! I shall laugh when the fellow sends his regrets – which he will do, if I know anything about these Town Tulips! I shall call on him, of course: can’t but do the civil, though I’d as lief give him the go-by.’
    ‘Never mind, sir!’ said Miss Trent encouragingly. ‘I daresay he will be gone again within a sennight, and he can’t break any hearts in such a short time, surely?’
    ‘Break any hearts? Oh, you’re thinking of the girls! They don’t bother me! It’s our boys. Damme if I wouldn’t be better pleased if he was a Bond Street fribble, for that wouldn’t send ’em mad after him! The mischief is that he’s a Top-of-the-Trees Corinthian – and I’ve seen what harm they can do to silly young greenheads!’
    The amusement left her face; she replied, after a moment: ‘Yes, sir: so too have I. In my own family – But that was in London! I can’t think that here, in such a quiet neighbourhood, the silliest greenhead could find the means to run into a ruinous course.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t fear they’ll do that!’ he said impatiently. ‘Merely break their necks, trying to outdo their precious Nonesuch! Would you believe it? – even my Arthur, slow-top though he is, has smashed my phaeton, trying to drive through my west farm-gate with never a check – nor any precision of eye neither! As for Banningham’s cub, riding that goose-rumped gray of his up the stairs at Brent Lodge, and your Courtenay hunting the squirrel on the Harrogate road – but mum for that! No harm done, and a rare trimming he got from old Adstock – for it was the wheels of his carriage the young chucklehead was trying to graze! Driving to an inch! ‘You can’t drive to an ell!’ Adcock told him. But you won’t repeat that!’
    She assured him that she would not; and as they had by this time reached the main gates of Staples he took his leave of her, saying sardonically, as he hoisted himself into the saddle, that they might think themselves fortunate Joseph Calver hadn’t gone to roost in the middle of the hunting season, when every cawker for miles round, after first pledging his father’s credit for white-topped boots, would have crammed his horse at a stake-and-bound, and would have been brought home on a hurdle. ‘Mark my words!’ he admonished Miss Trent. ‘You’ll see Underhill rigged out in a coat with a dozen shoulder-capes, and buttons the size of saucers before you’re much older! I told Arthur not to think I’d help him to make a cake of himself, aping the out-and-outers, but I don’t doubt Courtnay will get what he wants out of his mother! All the same, you females!’

Three
    It was perhaps inevitable that the Nonesuch’s arrival at Broom Hall should fall a long way short of expectation. Young Mr Mickleby, the Squire’s son, was able to report to his cronies that Sir Waldo had sent his horses on ahead, for he had himself seen two grooms turn in at the gates of Broom Hall. But the horses they led were only coverhacks: good-looking prads, but nothing marvellous, and no