‘Oh, Mr. Bell!  I never thought of seeing you!’

’But you give me a welcome, I hope, as well as that very pretty start of surprise.’

‘Have you dined?  How did you come?  Let me order you some dinner.’

’If you’re going to have any.  Otherwise, you know, there is no one who cares less for eating than I do.  But where are the others?  Gone out to dinner?  Left you alone?’

’Oh yes! and it is such a rest.  I was just thinking—­But will you run the risk of dinner?  I don’t know if there is anything in the house.’

’Why, to tell you the truth, I dined at my club.  Only they don’t cook as well as they did, so I thought, if you were going to dine, I might try and make out my dinner.  But never mind, never mind!  There aren’t ten cooks in England to be trusted at impromptu dinners.  If their skill and their fires will stand it, their tempers won’t.  You shall make me some tea, Margaret.  And now, what were you thinking of? you were going to tell me.  Whose letters were those, god-daughter, that you hid away so speedily?’

‘Only Dixon’s,’ replied Margaret, growing very red.

’Whew! is that all?  Who do you think came up in the train with me?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Margaret, resolved against making a guess.

’Your what d’ye call him?  What’s the right name for a cousin-in-law’s brother?’

‘Mr. Henry Lennox?’ asked Margaret.

‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Bell.  ’You knew him formerly, didn’t you?  What sort of a person is he, Margaret?’

‘I liked him long ago,’ said Margaret, glancing down for a moment.  And then she looked straight up and went on in her natural manner.  ’You know we have been corresponding about Frederick since; but I have not seen him for nearly three years, and he may be changed.  What did you think of him?’

’I don’t know.  He was so busy trying to find out who I was, in the first instance, and what I was in the second, that he never let out what he was; unless indeed that veiled curiosity of his as to what manner of man he had to talk to was not a good piece, and a fair indication of his character.  Do you call him good looking, Margaret?’

‘No! certainly not.  Do you?’

’Not I. But I thought, perhaps, you might.  Is he a great deal here?’

’I fancy he is when he is in town.  He has been on circuit now since I came.  But—­Mr. Bell—­have you come from Oxford or from Milton?’

‘From Milton.  Don’t you see I’m smoke-dried?’

’Certainly.  But I thought that it might be the effect of the antiquities of Oxford.’

’Come now, be a sensible woman!  In Oxford, I could have managed all the landlords in the place, and had my own way, with half the trouble your Milton landlord has given me, and defeated me after all.  He won’t take the house off our hands till next June twelvemonth.  Luckily, Mr. Thornton found a tenant for it.  Why don’t you ask after Mr. Thornton, Margaret?  He has proved himself a very active friend of yours, I can tell you.  Taken more than half the trouble off my hands.’