“She is——” said Miss Amelia, pausing, with inexorable memory and a host of dates at her finger-ends, “either forty-two or forty-three. I don’t quite recollect whether she was born in ‘14 or in ‘15. Now that I think, it was ‘14, for it was before the Waterloo year, which we had all such good cause to remember; and as for being left all alone, she had her children, and I always said she ought to have had the sense to know when she was well off. However, that is not the question. I want to know whether they will make any ado over Charley’s coming of age.” “Poor boy!—it is sad for him having no father to advise him at such an important time of his life,” said gentle Miss Harwood, with a sigh. “Oh, stuff!” said Miss Amelia. “Harry Clifford, poor fellow, never was wise enough to direct himself, and how could he have guided his son? I daresay Tom Summerhayes would be a better adviser, if you come to that. But I am sorry for Charley all the same: he’s the heir, and yet somehow he doesn’t seem the heir. His mother, after all, _is_ still a young woman, as you say, and Tom Summerhayes seems to have got everything so secure in his hands that one can’t help feeling something is sure to happen to make the estate his in the end. It can’t be, I suppose; they said the deeds were irrevocable, and that Mary couldn’t alter them if she wished, which I don’t suppose she does;—she loves her children, I must say that for her. Still one never feels sure with a man like Tom Summerhayes; and poor Charley has no more to do with his own affairs than if he were a little ploughboy on Mr Summerhayes’s estate.” “Hush, my dear,” said Miss Harwood, who was in her summer chair, which commanded, through the openings of the green blind, a view of the village green and the road before the door,—“here are Louisa and Lydia coming to call—and out of breath, too; so they must have some news or something particular to say.” “About Charley’s coming of age, of course,” said Miss Amelia. “I daresay Mary and Tom have had a fight over it, and he’s judged it as well for once to let Mary have her way. He always had a great deal of sense, had Tom Summerhayes.” “Oh, I declare, to see how far the Miss Harwoods are on with their things!” cried Miss Louisa Summerhayes, almost before she had entered the room; “but you are always in such good time, Miss Amelia. As for us, we have such a great deal to think about just now, it drives the bazaar out of our heads; almost as bad as if we had a family ourselves,” said Miss Lydia, with a breathless outburst. “I daresay you have heard the news—you who always hear everything from Fontanel.” “About Charley’s birthday?” said Miss Amelia.