 ask you because I said I would—and all the more because you are not cross about Mr Walcot—”

“Hold your tongue, Sydney!” said the mother.

“Do not be ridiculous, Sydney,” advised the sister.

“Mr Hope will say whether it is ridiculous, Sophy. Now, Mr Hope, would not you, and cousin Hester, and Margaret, go down the water with us to the abbey, just the same if Mr Walcot was with us?”

“With any guest of your father’s and mother’s, Sydney. We have no quarrel with Mr Walcot. The truth is, we feel, after all we have heard, that we know very little about him. We have not the slightest objection to meet Mr Walcot.”

“Neither wish nor objection,” said Hester, calmly. “We are perfectly indifferent about him.”

Sydney vehemently beckoned his father, who left the apricot he and Margaret were examining by the surgery wall, and came to see what he was wanted for.

“You see,” said he to Hope, when the matter was explained, “I have naturally been rather anxious to bring this about this meeting between you and the young man. In a small place like this, it is painful to have everybody quarrelling, and not to be able to get one’s friends about one, for fear they should brawl in one’s very drawing-room. Mr Rowland is of my mind there; and I know it would gratify him if I were to take some notice of this young man. I really could hardly refuse, knowing how handsomely Mr Rowland always speaks of you and yours, and believing Mr Walcot to be a very respectable, harmless young man. If I thought it would injure your interests in the least, I would see him at Cape Horn before I would invite him, of course: you must be aware of that. And I should not think of asking you to meet Mrs Rowland; that would be going too far. But Mrs Grey wishes that your wife and Margaret should visit these ruins that we were always prevented from getting to last year: and Mr Walcot is anxious to see them too; and he has been civil to Sydney; and, in short, I believe that Sydney half promised that he should go with us.”

“Say no more,” replied Hope. “You will have no difficulty with us. I really know nothing against Mr Walcot. He had a perfect right to settle where he pleased. Whether the manner of doing it was handsome or otherwise, is of far more consequence to himself than to me, or to any one else
