"Oh! I have told you, over and over again, I am delighted to have seen you; and I like your conversation amazingly: you are very different indeed from what I expected." "In Heaven's name, what did you expect?" I said. "Who ever spoke of me to you, that knew me?" "Nobody that knew you; but you are a good deal spoken of, notwithstanding. I was curious to see if they were correct." "And what did they say? I will endeavour to correct them if they are mistaken." "They said you and your father moped so continually in the old house, that you had grown (like Quasimodo) to have a resemblance to brick and mortar yourselves. I expect to see you like a gable-end, with a couple of mullioned windows for eyes, and a mouth. I was astonished to see you so nearly human." "Ah! you will humanize me still more if you laugh at me as you do; do take pity on me, and don't let me settle down into a wall." "With all my heart, for I have no turn for architecture; and, by all the descriptions I hear of the old court, you don't seem to be Palladios." "There may be other reasons besides a want of skill and inclination," I said, with a sad feeling of the anti-architectural condition of our exchequer. "Oh! you mean poverty. Then, why don't you sell the old place?" "It would kill my father to think of it." "But it would not have so dreadful an effect on you? I know you could get it sold if you like." "An old impudent fellow of the name of Jeeks wishes to force us into a sale. I will see him and all his race at the bottom of the Red Sea first." "Would you sell it then?" she said. "No--but, fair Lucy Ashton, why do you ask?" "Because if you parted with one brick of the old house, one blade of grass of the old park, one leaf of one old tree in the old wood, our acquaintance would end as rapidly as it began." "Then it shall suffer no decay," I said, and took her hand, which she held out to me with honest warmth; "and now let me find out, if I can, who it is that gives me such admirable advice. I called on Mr Dobble yesterday." "He told you a great many things, by the by, did he?" she said. "You know him, I see, and he knows _you_." As I said this, I looked with the air of a man who has discovered a portentous secret; but she bore my look with the same celestial open smile as ever. "What a happy man he must be in knowing so first-rate a parishioner. Did he boast much of our acquaintance?" "He seemed to know more of your brothers and sisters," I said. "Oh, which of them did he like best? How many did he say I had?" This was a puzzler; for I was quite undecided whether to consider her a daughter of the house of Juffles with fourteen children, or Poggs with only two. "Amy seemed a great favourite," I replied. "But, my brothers--what did he say of my brothers?" "He said--but perhaps it was in confidence--so I will not mention all he told me. He spoke highly of the whole family of Mr Poggs."