‘Fourteen-feet, ma’am, you mean,’ said Old Tom, counting the heads at table.

‘Bravo, Mama!’ cried the Countess, and as she was sitting near her mother, she must show how prettily she kissed, by pouting out her playful lips to her parent.  ’Do be economical always!  And mind! for the sake of the wretched animals, I will intercede for you to be his inspector of stables.’

This, with a glance of intelligence at her sisters.

‘Well, Mr. Raikes,’ said Andrew, ’you keep good hours, at all events—­ eh?’

‘Up with the lark,’ said Old Tom.  ’Ha! ’fraid he won’t be so early when he gets rid of his present habits—­eh?’

‘Nec dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computant,’ said Mr. Raikes, and both the brothers sniffed like dogs that have put their noses to a hot coal, and the Countess, who was less insensible to the aristocracy of the dead languages than are women generally, gave him the recognition that is occasionally afforded the family tutor.

About the hour of ten Evan arrived.  He was subjected to the hottest embrace he had ever yet received from his sister Louisa.

‘Darling!’ she called him before them all.  ’Oh! how I suffer for this ignominy I see you compelled for a moment to endure.  But it is but for a moment.  They must vacate; and you will soon be out of this horrid hole.’

‘Where he just said he was glad to give us a welcome,’ muttered Old Tom.

Evan heard him, and laughed.  The Countess laughed too.

‘No, we will not be impatient.  We are poor insignificant people!’ she said; and turning to her mother, added:  ’And yet I doubt not you think the smallest of our landed gentry equal to great continental seigneurs.  I do not say the contrary.’

’You will fill Evan’s head with nonsense till you make him knock up a horse a week, and never go to his natural bed,’ said Mrs. Mel, angrily.  ‘Look at him!  Is a face like that fit for business?’

‘Certainly, certainly not!’ said the Countess.

’Well, Mother, the horse is dismissed,—­you won’t have to complain any more,’ said Evan, touching her hand.  ’Another history commences from to-day.’

The Countess watched him admiringly.  Such powers of acting she could not have ascribed to him.

‘Another history, indeed!’ she said.  ’By the way, Van, love! was it out of Glamorganshire—­were we Tudors, according to Papa? or only Powys chieftains?  It’s of no moment, but it helps one in conversation.’

‘Not half so much as good ale, though!’ was Old Tom’s comment.

The Countess did not perceive its fitness, till Evan burst into a laugh, and then she said: 

’Oh! we shall never be ashamed of the Brewery.  Do not fear that, Mr. Cogglesby.’