then he said, 'Miles Merryweather, my dear! Excellent person!
Heard he had taken the old house, but had no idea he was coming so
soon. Eminent scientific man, manager of the new chemical works at
Brompton, over yonder. Met him once, some years ago; glad to renew
the acquaintance. Large family, I see, yes, yes; hum, ha! Boy
about Hugh's age; inferior to him in intellect, my dear, I'll bet
a--I should be tolerably certain. Astonishing lad, my Hugh! Ha!
Mrs. Merryweather, presumably; literary, I hear, and that sort of
thing. Don't care for literary people myself; prefer their books;
but looks amiable. Pretty girl that, Hilda, my dear! the tall slip
with the fair hair! Yes, yes! "A pretty girl's the noblest work
of"--you remember? What's that? "An honest man," in the original?
Now, will you hear this girl setting her elders to rights? I
wonder what your mother was thinking of when she brought you up,
young woman!' and so on, and so on, in his own delightful way.
Really, mammina, from what he said, we are going to have a great
acquisition to the little neighbourhood. We must call as soon as
it would be in any way decent, mustn't we? Oh, but wait! I must
tell you the end. We had been so interested in watching the
children, and in seeing them go tumbling down and up into the
house, that we had lost sight of Mr. Merryweather himself. I
suppose he must have driven round to the stable and left the
horses there; for suddenly, almost in our ears, we heard a deep
voice saying, 'A fine hedge, but needs clipping badly; we must set
the boys to work in the morning.' We started back as if we had
been shot. Colonel Ferrers turned purple, and I felt every colour
in the rainbow flooding my cheeks. We made sure we had been seen
or heard, and I think Colonel Ferrers was on the point of stepping
forward like a soldier, and apologizing; but I held his arm for a
moment, in pure cowardice, and the next moment we saw Mr. and Mrs.