‘Come, that is something.’

’It was an old family seat, and they used to have avenues in those days; but it doesn’t lead up to the present hail door.  It comes sideways up to the farm. yard; so that the whole thing must have been different once, and there must have been a great court-yard.  In Elizabeth’s time Plaistow Manor was rather a swell place, and belonged to some Roman Catholics who came to grief, and then the Howards got it.  There’s a whole history about it, only I don’t care much about those things.’

‘And is it yours now?’

’It’s between me and my uncle, and I pay him rent for his part.  He’s a clergyman you know, and he has a living in Lincolnshire not far off.’

‘And do you live alone in that big house?’

‘There’s my sister.  You’ve heard of Mary haven’t you?’

Then Clara remembered that there was a Miss Belton, a poor sickly creature, with a twisted spine and a hump back, as to whose welfare she ought to have made inquiries.

‘Oh yes; of course,’ said Clara.  ’I hope she’s better than she used to be when we heard of her.’

’She’ll never be better.  But then she does not become much worse.  I think she does grow a little weaker.  She’s older than I am, you know two years older; but you would think she was quite an old woman to look at her.’  Then, for the next half-hour, they talked about Mary Belton as they visited every corner of the place.  Belton still had an eye to business as he went on talking, and Clara remarked how many sticks he moved as he went, how many stones he kicked on one side, and how invariably he noted any defect in the fences.  But still he talked of his sister, swearing that she was as good as gold, and at last wiping away the tears from his eyes as he described her maladies.  ’And yet I believe she is better off than any of us,’ he said, ’because she is so good.’  Clara began to wish that she had called him Will from the beginning, because she liked him so much.  He was just the man to have for a cousin a true loving cousin, stalwart, self-confident, with a grain or two of tyranny in his composition as becomes a man in relation to his intimate female relatives; and one, moreover, with whom she could trust herself to be familiar without any danger of love-making!  She saw his character clearly, and told herself that she understood it perfectly.  He wag a jewel of a cousin, and she must begin to call him Will as speedily as possible.

At last they came round in their walk to the gate leading into Colonel Askerton’s garden; and here in the garden, close to the gate, they found Mrs Askerton.  I fancy that she had been watching for them, or at any rate watching for Clara, so that she might know how her friend was carrying herself with her cousin.  She came at once to the wicket, and there she was introduced by Clara to Mr Belton.  Mr Belton, as he made his bow, muttered something awkwardly, and seemed to lose his self-possession for the moment.  Mrs Askerton was very gracious to him, and she knew well how to be both gracious and ungracious.  She talked about the scenery, and the charms of the old place, and the dullness of the people around them, and the inexpediency of looking for society in country places; till after awhile Mr Belton was once more at his ease.