‘Well, the hunting’s all over, don’t you know, and there’s no more shooting, and I never cared much for fishing, and I’ve got such a confoundedly clever bailiff that he won’t let me open my mouth on the farm. So the days do hang rather heavy on a fellow’s hands.’ ‘Why don’t you take to Alpine climbing?’ suggested Daphne. ‘I don’t mean Mont Blanc—everybody does that—but the Matterhorn, or Monte Rosa, or something. If I were a young man I should amuse myself in that way.’ ‘I don’t set an exaggerated value on my life, but when I do make up my mind to throw it away, I think I’ll do the thing more comfortably,’ replied Edgar Turchill. ‘Don’t trouble yourself to suggest employment for me. I’m not complaining of my life. There’s a good deal of loafing in it, but I rather like loafing, especially when I can loaf in pleasant company. Where are you going, and may I go with you?’ ‘I am going on a duty visit to Aunt Rhoda and my new uncle. Isn’t it rather dreadful to have an uncle thrust upon one in that way?’ ‘Well,’ returned Edgar deliberately, ‘I must say if I had the choosing of my relations I should leave out the Rector. But you needn’t mind him. Practically he’s no more to you than he was before he married your aunt.’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Daphne doubtfully. ‘He may take liberties. He was always a lecturing old thing, and he’ll lecture ever so much more now that he’s a relation.’ ‘But you needn’t stand his lecturing. Just tell him quietly that you don’t hold with clerical interference in the affairs of the laity.’ ‘He got me ready for my confirmation, and that gave him a kind of hold over me,’ said Daphne. ‘You see, he found out the depth of my ignorance.’ ‘I’ll wager he’d be ploughed in a divinity exam, to-morrow,’ said Edgar. ‘These old heathens of village parsons got their degrees in a day when the dons were a set of sleepy-headed old duffers like themselves. But don’t let’s talk about him. What is Madoline going to do in Warwick?’ ‘She and my father are going to make some calls in the neighbourhood, and I believe she has a little shopping to do.’ ‘Why didn’t you go with them?’ ‘Papa does not like to have three people in the barouche. Besides, I had promised to call on my aunt. She talked to me quite awfully last night about my want of proper feeling in never having visited her in her new house.’ ‘Why didn’t you wait till she asked you to dinner? They give capital dinners at the Rectory, but their feeds are few and far between. I don’t want to say anything rude about your aunt, but she strikes me as a lady who has too keen an appreciation of the value of money to fritter it away upon other people.’