‘Are they all gone?’ Buckland asked, finding a vacant room.

‘Father is no doubt in the study.’

’It occurs to me—.  Do you feel satisfied with this dead-alive existence?’

‘Satisfied?  No life could suit me better.’

‘You really think of living here indefinitely?’

‘As far as I am concerned, I hope nothing may ever disturb us.’

’And to the end of your life you will scent yourself with sweetbrier?  Do try a bit of mint for a change.’

‘Certainly, if it will please you.’

’Seriously, I think you might all come to town for next winter.  You are rusting, all of you.  Father was never so dull, and mother doesn’t seem to know how to pass the days.  It wouldn’t be bad for Louis to be living with you instead of in lodgings.  Do just think of it.  It’s ages since you heard a concert, or saw a picture.’

Sidwell mused, and her brother watched her askance.

‘I don’t know whether the others would care for it,’ she said, ’but I am not tempted by a winter of fog.’

’Fog?  Pooh!  Well, there is an occasional fog, just now and then, but it’s much exaggerated.  Who ever thinks of the weather in England?  Fanny might have a time at Bedford College or some such place-she learns nothing here.  Think it over.  Father would be delighted to get among the societies, and so on.’

He repeated his arguments in many forms, and Sidwell listened patiently, until they were joined by Mr. Warricombe, whereupon the subject dropped; to be resumed, however, in correspondence, with a persistency which Buckland seldom exhibited in anything which affected the interests of his relatives.  As the summer drew on, Mrs Warricombe began to lend serious ear to this suggestion of change, and Martin was at all events moved to discuss the pros and cons of half a year in London.  Sidwell preserved neutrality, seldom making an allusion to the project; but Fanny supported her brother’s proposal with sprightly zeal, declaring on one occasion that she began distinctly to feel the need of ‘a higher culture’, such as London only could supply.

In the meantime there had been occasional interchange of visits between the family and their friends at Budleigh Salterton.  One evening, when Mrs. Moorhouse and Sylvia were at the Warricombes’, three or four Exeter people came to dine, and among the guests was Godwin Peak—­his invitation being due in this instance to Sylvia’s express wish to meet him again.

‘I am studying men,’ she had said to Sidwell not long before, when the latter was at the seaside with her.  ’In our day this is the proper study of womankind.  Hitherto we have given serious attention only to one another.  Mr. Peak remains in my memory as a type worth observing; let me have a chance of talking to him when I come next.’

She did not neglect her opportunity, and Mrs. Moorhouse, who also conversed with the theologian and found him interesting, was so good as to hope that he would call upon her if ever his steps turned towards Budleigh Salterton.