‘You are thinking with regret of your old home,’ Everard remarked, taking a seat nearer to Miss Nunn.’

‘No.  Why should you fancy that?’

‘Only because you seem rather sad.’

‘One is sometimes.’

’I like to see you with that look.  May I remind you that you promised me some flowers from Cheddar?’

‘Oh, so I did,’ exclaimed the other in a tone of natural recollection.  ’I have brought them, scientifically pressed between blotting-paper.  I’ll fetch them.’

When she returned it was together with Miss Barfoot, and the conversation became livelier.

A day or two after this Everard left town, and was away for three weeks, part of the time in Ireland.

‘I left London for a while,’ he wrote from Killarney to his cousin, ’partly because I was afraid I had begun to bore you and Miss Nunn.  Don’t you regret giving me permission to call upon you?  The fact is, I can’t live without intelligent female society; talking with women, as I talk with you two, is one of my chief enjoyments.  I hope you won’t get tired of my visits; in fact, they are all but a necessity to me, as I have discovered since coming away.  But it was fair that you should have a rest.’

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Miss Barfoot replied to this part of his letter.  ’We are not at all weary of your conversation.  The truth is, I like it much better than in the old days.  You seem to me to have a healthier mind, and I am quite sure that the society of intelligent women (we affect no foolish self-depreciation, Miss Nunn and I) is a good thing for you.  Come back to us as soon as you like; I shall welcome you.’

It happened that his return to England was almost simultaneous with the arrival from Madeira of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Barfoot.  Everard at once went to see his brother, who for the present was staying at Torquay.  Ill-health dictated his choice of residence; Thomas was still suffering from the results of his accident; his wife had left him at a hotel, and was visiting relatives in different parts of England.  The brothers exhibited much affectionate feeling after their long separation; they spent a week together, and planned for another meeting when Mrs. Thomas should have returned to her husband.

An engagement called Everard back to town.  He was to be present at the wedding of his friend Micklethwaite, now actually on the point of taking place.  The mathematician had found a suitable house, very small and of very low rental, out at South Tottenham, and thither was transferred the furniture which had been in his bride’s possession since the death of her parents; Micklethwaite bought only a few new things.  By discreet inquiry, Barfoot had discovered that ‘Fanny,’ though musically inclined, would not possess a piano, her old instrument being quite worn out and not worth the cost of conveyance; thus it came to pass that, a day or two before the wedding, Micklethwaite was astonished by the arrival of an instrument of the Cottage species, mysteriously addressed to a person not yet in existence, Mrs. Micklethwaite.