“Yes, indeed, with diamond beetle studs and a fresh twist to his moustache.  It has grown long enough to be waxed.”

“How happy that fellow would be if he were obliged to dig!  I should like to scatter his wardrobe over Ponter’s Court.”

“There, Nan, have you finished?” as Anna swept the scattered leaves into a basket.  “Are you coming?”

“I don’t think I shall.  You would only talk treason-—well-—social treason all the way, and you don’t want me, and Aunt Cherry would have to lunch alone, unless you wait till after.”

“Oh no, I know a scrumptious place for lunch,” said Gerald.  “You are right, Annie, one lady is quite enough on one’s hands in such regions.  You have no jewellery, Emmie?”

“Do you see any verdure about me?” she retorted.

So when Gerald’s tardy movements had been overcome, off they started to their beloved slum, Emilia looking as if she were setting forth for Elysium, and they were seen no more, even when five o’clock tea was spread, and Anna making it for her Uncle Lance and his wife, who had just returned, full of political news; and likewise Lance said that he had picked up some intelligence for his sister.  He had met General Mohun and Sir Jasper Merrifield, both connections of the Underwoods.

General Mohun lived with his sister at Rockstone, Sir Jasper, his brother-in-law, at Clipstone, not far off, and they both recommended Rockquay and its bay “with as much praise,” said Lance, “as the inhabitants ever give of a sea place.”

“Very good, except for the visitors,” said Geraldine.

“Exactly so.  Over-built, over-everythinged, but still tolerable.  The General lives there with his sister, and promises to write to me about houses, and Sir Jasper in a house a few miles off.”

“He is Bernard’s father-in-law?”

“Yes,” said Gertrude; “and my brother Harry married a sister of Lady Merrifield, a most delightful person as ever I saw.  We tell my father that if she were not out in New Zealand we should all begin to be jealous, he is so enthusiastic about Phyllis.”

“You have never told us how Dr. May is.”

“It is not easy to persuade him that he is not as young as he was,” said Gertrude.

“I should say he was,” observed Lance.

“In heart-—that’s true,” said Gertrude; “but he does get tired, and goes to sleep a good deal, but he likes to go and see his old patients, as much as they like to have him, and Ethel is always looking after him.  It is just her life now that Cocksmoor has grown so big and wants her less.  Things do settle themselves.  If any one had told her twenty years ago that Richard would have a great woollen factory living, and Cocksmoor and Stoneborough meet, and a separate parish be made, with a disgusting paper-mill, two churches, and a clergyman’s wife-—(what’s the female of whipper-snapper, Lance?)-—who treats her as—-”

“As an extinct volcano,” murmured Lance.