‘It must be very pretty amongst those beautiful ferns!’

‘You can’t conceive anything more charming,’ he continued, with the same low distinct utterance, but an earnestness that almost took away her breath.  ’There are nine ferns on this bank—­that is, if we have the Scolopendrium Loevigatum, as I am persuaded.  Do you know anything of ferns?  Ah! you come from the land of tree ferns.’

’Oh!  I am so glad to exchange them for our home flowers.  Primroses look so friendly and natural.’

’These rocks are perfect nests for them, and they even overhang the river.  This is the best bit of the stream, so rapid and foaming that I must throw a bridge across for Aunt Catharine.  Which would be most appropriate?  I was weighing it as I came up—­a simple stone, or a rustic performance in wood?’

‘I should like stone,’ said Mary, amused by his eagerness.

’A rough Druidical stone!  That’s it!  The idea of rude negligent strength accords with such places, and this is a stone country.  I know the very stone!  Do come down and see!’

‘To-morrow, if you please,’ said Mary.  ’Mamma must want me, and—­but I suppose they know of your return at home.’

’No, they don’t.  They have learnt by experience that the right time is the one never to expect me.’

Mary’s eyes were all astonishment, as she said, between wonder and reproof, ‘Is that on purpose?’

‘Adventures are thrust on some people,’ was the nonchalant reply, with shoulders depressed, and a twinkle of the eye, as if he purposed amazing his auditor.’

’I hope you have had an adventure, for nothing else could justify you,’ said Mary, with some humour, but more gravity.

’Only a stray infant-errant, cast on my mercy at the junction station.  Nurse, between eating and gossiping left behind—­bell rings—­engine squeaks—­train starts—­Fitzjocelyn and infant vis-a-vis.’

‘You don’t mean a baby?’

’A child of five years old, who soon ceased howling, and confided his history to me.  He had been visiting grandmamma in London, and was going home to Illershall; so I found the best plan would be to leave the train at the next station, and take him home.’

‘Oh, that was quite another thing!’ exclaimed Mary, gratified at being able to like him.  ‘Could you find his home?’

’Yes; he knew his name and address too well to be lost or mislaid.  I would have come home as soon as I had seen him in at the door; but the whole family rushed out on me, and conjured me first to dine and then to sleep.  They are capital people.  Dobbs is superintendent of the copper and tin works—­a thoroughly right-minded man, with a nice, ladylike wife, the right sort of sound stuff that old England’s heart is made of.  It was worth anything to have seen it!  They do incalculable good with their work-people.  I saw the whole concern.’

He launched into an explanation of the process, producing from his pocket, papers of the ore, in every stage of manufacture, and twisting them up so carelessly, that they would have become a mass of confusion, had not Mary undertaken the repacking.