“The Crowthers are rather grand in their ideas,” said the doctor, “but Alicia is very keen upon all kind of sport, so I know she’ll want to come, whatever Belinda may say to it.” Mrs. Baynham made a wry face at the name of the elder sister. It was an involuntary and unconscious contortion; but Belinda had tried to snub Mrs. Baynham, who never could forget that her father was a banker at Truro, and held the fortunes--the mortgages and encumbrances of the landed gentry--in the hollow of his hand. “You don’t like the elder Miss Crowther?” speculated the colonel. “Well, if I am to be candid, I must confess that I have a positive aversion to that young lady. The airs she gives herself on the strength of her father’s wool are really insupportable, and since Lord Lostwithiel disappointed her she has been more odious than she was before.” “What do you mean by Lostwithiel disappointing her? Did he jilt her?” “Well, it could scarcely be called jilting, and I really don’t know that there was anything between them; but people had coupled their names--and he dined at Glenaveril at least once a week all the time he was at the Mount--and people had quite made up their minds it was to be a match. Mr. Crowther went about talking of Lord Lostwithiel and his affairs as if he was his father-in-law--the neglected condition of the land, and what ought to be done at the Mount, and that the estate wanted judicious nursing, and all that sort of thing. And then one December morning his lordship sailed off in his yacht before it was light, and there was no more heard of him. It was quite in his way to go off suddenly like that, but the Crowthers were evidently taken by surprise, and we heard no more about Lord Lostwithiel and the Mount.” “They dropped him like a hot potato,” said the doctor. “Well, we shall depend upon you both for our water-party. It will not be till the middle of July, when an old chum of mine, a sailor, will be coming this way.” This was a sample of many such visits. In the country, and even in London upon occasion, people are given to discussing the same subjects. Martin Disney heard a good deal about the Crowthers and their supposed disappointment. People liked Mrs. Crowther for her simple, unaffected ways, and thorough-going kindliness; but Vansittart and his daughters had made a good many enemies. He was too coarse; they were too fine; only the mother’s simple nature had caught the golden mean between blunt vulgarity and artificial smartness.