‘When are you all coming to see me?’ he asked, as he stood smoothing his felt hat with the back of his hand.  ’I suppose I shall have to give a croquet party, and have some of the young fellows, then you’ll come fast enough.  Old men like myself you care nothing about.’

‘I should think not, indeed,’ replied Barbara the plain.  ’Why, your hair’s going grey.  If you didn’t shave, you’d have had grey whiskers long ago.’

‘When I invite the others,’ he returned, laughing, ’you may consider yourself excepted.’

Amid delicate banter of this kind he took his departure.  Of course he was instantly the subject of clamorous chatter.

‘Will he really give a croquet party?’ demanded one, eagerly.

‘Not he!’ was the reply from another.  ’It would cost him too much in tea and cakes.’

‘Nonsense!’ put in Mrs. Cartwright.  ’He doesn’t care for society, that’s what it is.  I believe he’s a good deal happier living there by himself than he was when his wife was alive.’

‘That isn’t very wonderful,’ exclaimed Amy.  ’A proud, stuck-up thing, she was!  Served him right if she made him uncomfortable; he only married her because her people were grand.’

‘I don’t believe they ever go near him now,’ said the mother.

‘What did they quarrel about, mother?’ asked Jessie.  ’I believe he used his wife badly, that’s the truth of it.’

‘How do you know what the truth of it is?’ returned her mother, contemptuously.  ’I know very well he did nothing of the kind; whatever his faults are, he’s not that sort of man.’

’Well, you must confess, mother, he’s downright mean; and you’ve often enough said Mrs. Dagworthy spent more money than pleased him.  I know very well I shouldn’t like to be his wife.’

‘You wait till he asks you, Jessie,’ cried Barbara, with sisterly reproof.

‘I don’t suppose he’s very likely to ask any of you,’ said Mrs. Cartwright, with a laugh which was not very hearty.  ’Now, Geraldine, when are you going to have done your breakfast?  Here’s ten o’clock, and you seem as if you’d never stop eating.  I won’t have this irregularity.  Now tomorrow morning I’ll have the table cleared at nine o’clock, and if you’re not down you’ll go without breakfast altogether, mind what I say.’

The threat was such an old one that Geraldine honoured it with not the least attention, but helped herself abundantly to marmalade, which she impasted solidly on buttered toast, and consumed with much relish.

‘Now you’ve got Emily here,’ pursued Mrs. Cartwright, turning her attack upon Jessie, ’what are you going to do with her?  Are you going to have your lessons in this room?’

‘I don’t know.  What do you say, Emily?’

Emily was clearly of Opinion that lessons under such conditions were likely to be of small profit.

‘If it were not so far,’ she said, ’I should propose that you came to me every other day; I should think that will be often enough.’