An American when he has spent a pleasant day will tell you that he has had a ‘good time’.  I think that Mrs Dobbs Broughton, if she had ever spoken the truth of that day’s employment would have acknowledged that she had had a ‘good time’.  I think that she enjoyed her morning’s work.  But as for Conway Dalrymple, I doubt whether he did enjoy his morning’s work.  ’A man may have too much of this sort of thing, and then he becomes very sick of his cake.’  Such was the nature of his thoughts as he returned to his own abode.

CHAPTER LII

Why don’t you have an ‘it’ for yourself?

Of course it came to pass that Lily Dale and Emily Dunstable were soon very intimate, and that they saw each other every day.  Indeed, before long they would have been living together in the same house had it not been that the squire had felt reluctant to abandon the independence of his own lodgings.  When Mrs Thorne had pressed her invitation for the second, and then for the third time, asking them both to come to her large house, he had begged his niece to go and leave him alone.  ’You need not regard me,’ he had said, speaking not with the whining voice of complaint, but with that thin tinge of melancholy which was usual to him.  ’I am so much alone down in Allington, that you need not mind leaving me.’ but Lily would not go on those terms, and therefore they still lived together in the lodgings.  Nevertheless Lily was every day at Mrs Thorne’s house, and thus a great intimacy grew up between the girls.  Emily Dunstable had neither brother nor sister, and Lily’s nearest male relative in her own degree was now Miss Dunstable’s betrothed husband.  It was natural therefore that they should at any rate try to like each other.  It afterwards came to pass that Lily did go to Mrs Thorne’s house, and she stayed there for a while; but when that occurred the squire had gone back to Allington.

Among other generous kindnesses Mrs Thorne insisted that Bernard should hire a horse for his cousin Lily.  Emily Dunstable rode daily, and of course Captain Dale rode with her;—­and now Lily joined the party.  Almost before she knew what was being done she found herself provided with hat and habit and horse and whip.  It was a way with Mrs Thorne that they who came within the influence of her immediate sphere should be made to feel that the comforts and luxuries arising from her wealth belonged to a common stock, and were the joint property of them all.  Things were not offered and taken and talked about, but they made their appearance, and were used as a matter of course.  If you go to stay at a gentleman’s house you understand that, as a matter of course, you will be provided with meat and drink.  Some hosts furnish you also with cigars.  A small number give you stabling and forage for you horse; and a very select few mount you on hunting days, and send