“Six weeks at Allington without a move!  Why, Mr Crosbie, you must have felt yourself to be growing there.”

“So I did—­like an ancient tree.  Indeed, I was so rooted that I could hardly get away.”

“Was the house full of people all the time?”

“There was nobody there but Bernard Dale, Lady Julia’s nephew.”

“Quite a case of Damon and Pythias.  Fancy your going down to the shades of Allington to enjoy the uninterrupted pleasures of friendship for six weeks.”

“Friendship and the partridges.”

“There was nothing else, then?”

“Indeed there was.  There was a widow with two very nice daughters, living, not exactly in the same house, but on the same grounds.”

“Oh, indeed.  That makes such a difference; doesn’t it?  You are not a man to bear much privation on the score of partridges, nor a great deal, I imagine, for friendship.  But when you talk of pretty girls—­”

“It makes a difference, doesn’t it?”

“A very great difference.  I think I have heard of that Mrs Dale before.  And so her girls are nice?”

“Very nice indeed.”

“Play croquet, I suppose, and eat syllabub on the lawn?  But, really, didn’t you get very tired of it?”

“Oh dear, no.  I was happy as the day was long.”

“Going about with a crook, I suppose?”

“Not exactly a live crook; but doing all that kind of thing.  I learned a great deal about pigs.”

“Under the guidance of Miss Dale?”

“Yes; under the guidance of Miss Dale.”

“I’m sure one is very much obliged to you for tearing yourself away from such charms, and coming to such unromantic people as we are.  But I fancy men always do that sort of thing once or twice in their lives,—­and then they talk of their souvenirs.  I suppose it won’t go beyond a souvenir with you.”

This was a direct question, but still admitted of a fencing answer.  “It has, at any rate, given me one,” said he, “which will last me my life!”

The countess was quite contented.  That Lady Julia’s statement was altogether true she had never for a moment doubted.  That Crosbie should become engaged to a young lady in the country, whereas he had shown signs of being in love with her daughter in London, was not at all wonderful.  Nor, in her eyes, did such practice amount to any great sin.  Men did so daily, and girls were prepared for their so doing.  A man in her eyes was not to be regarded as safe from attack because he was engaged.  Let the young lady who took upon herself to own him have an eye to that.  When she looked back on the past careers of her own flock, she had to reckon more than one such disappointment for her own daughters.  Others besides Alexandrina had been so treated.  Lady de Courcy had had her grand hopes respecting her girls, and after them moderate hopes, and again after them bitter disappointments.  Only one had been married, and she was married to an attorney.  It was not to be supposed that she would have any very high-toned feelings as to Lily’s rights in this matter.