it did not result in favour of Mr Glascock. On the present occasion
Mr Glascock as he sat next to her almost proposed to her.

'You have never seen Monkhams?' he said. Monkhams was his father's
seat, a very grand place in Worcestershire. Of course he knew very
well that she had never seen Monkhams. How should she have seen
it?

'I have never been in that part of England at all,' she replied.

'I should so like to show you Monkhams. The oaks there are the
finest in the kingdom. Do you like oaks?'

'Who does not like oaks? But we have none in the islands, and nobody
has ever seen so few as I have.'

'I'll show you Monkhams some day. Shall I? Indeed I hope that some
day I may really show you Monkhams.'

Now when an unmarried man talks to a young lady of really showing
her the house in which it will be his destiny to live, he can
hardly mean other than to invite her to live there with him. It
must at least be his purpose to signify that, if duly encouraged,
he will so invite her. But Nora Rowley did not give Mr Glascock
much encouragement on this occasion.

'I'm afraid it is not likely that anything will ever take me into
that part of the country,' she said. There was something perhaps in
her tone which checked Mr Glascock, so that he did not then press
the invitation.