“And I am always so glad to see her. How narrow your doors are in these old houses! Those Normans must have been a skewer-shouldered lot. Now, Roland, if I have said anything harsh, you will make all allowance for me, of course; because you know the reason.” “You mean that you are a little disappointed----” “Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary. But after such weather as we’ve had, and nothing but duty, duty, to do--one is apt to get a little crotchety. What kind of sport can be got anywhere? The landrail-shooting is over, of course, and the rabbits are running in families; the fish are all sulky, and the water low, and the sea-trout not come up yet. There are no young hounds fit to handle yet; and the ground cracks the heels of a decent hack. One’s mouth only waters at oiling a gun; all the best of the cocks are beginning to mute; and if one gets up a badger-bait, to lead to a dinner-party, people will come, and look on, and make bets, and then tell the women how cruel it was! And with all the week thus, I am always expected to say something new, every Sunday morning!” “Nay, nay, Struan. Come now; we have never expected that of you. But here comes Alice, from her gardening work! Now, she does look well; don’t you think she does?” “Not a rose in June, but a rose in May!” the rector answered gallantly, kissing his hand to his niece, and then with his healthy bright lips saluting her: “you grow more and more like your mother, darling. Ah, when I think of the bygone days, before I had any wife, or daughters, things occur to me that never----” “Go and bait your badger, Struan, after one more glass of wine.” CHAPTER XXI. A NOTABLE LADY. Nature appears to have sternly willed that no man shall keep a secret. There is a monster, here and there perhaps to be discovered, who can sustain his boast of never whispering anything; but he ought to expect to be put aside, in our estimate of humanity. And in compensation, the powers above provide him, for the most part, with a wife of fecund loquacity. A word is enough on such parlous themes; and the least said, the soonest mended. What one of us is not exceeding wise, in his own, or his wife’s opinion? What one of us does not pretend to be as “reticent” as Minerva’s owl; and yet in his heart confess that a secret is apt to fly out of his bosom? Nature is full of rules; and if the above should happen to be one of them, it was illustrated in the third attack upon Sir Roland’s secrecy. For scarcely had he succeeded in baffling, without offending, his brother-in-law, when a servant brought him a summons from his mother, Lady Valeria.