‘Not any duller than Thorsgarth, I should fancy. It was as lovely a place as ever I saw. We were more there and less in London the last few years. Of course I like London, but I never felt dull at Brinswell. What fruit and flowers! Of course, things can’t grow here as they did there. The trees look so small and stunted.’ ‘Small! Why, the Bradstane ash-trees are noted all through the country-side.’ ‘Well, yes, the ash-trees. They are fine. But, of course, they ought to be.’ And she hummed to herself— ‘Oh, the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy-tree, They grow the best at home in the north countrie.’ ‘At home,’ she added, half to herself. ‘This is the north countrie, and this is my home, after all. It’s a shame I don’t know it better. Wherever you look,’ she added, addressing him directly again, ‘you seem to see a blue wall in the distance. Otho, does any one ever get as far as those blue walls?’ And she pointed towards the north-west, where Mickle Fell and his brethren loomed high. ‘Blue walls!’ repeated Otho, embarrassed by the application of such terms to the moors, which to him represented so many acres of good shooting, and those in another direction stabling for another hobby of his, of which Eleanor was as yet unaware. ‘How you talk! Those that you are pointing to are the fells on the Westmoreland border, and those other ones, to the south, are the Swaledale moors.’ ‘Swaledale moors? But one can get over them, I suppose. What is there on the other side?’ ‘More moors and more dales. It’s bleak enough there, if you like. There’s some good shooting, though.’ ‘I should like to see what there is at the other side,’ said Eleanor, her eyes fixed dreamily on the moors. Then, as they turned a bend in the road, ‘Is it far to this place you are taking me to?’ ‘Only about another three-quarters of a mile.’ ‘This Miss Wynter—is she a very old friend of yours?’ asked Eleanor unconsciously. ‘I don’t ever remember to have heard you speak of her.’ ‘Oh yes, you have,’ said Otho, with effrontery; ‘but you’ve very likely forgotten. She is my only friend—amongst the women, that is.’ ‘Ah! an elderly woman?’ ‘About my own—well, she’s a year or so older than I am.’ ‘Oh! An invalid, I suppose?’ ‘Why the—— What on earth makes you think she should be an invalid?’ ‘If she is neither old nor ill, I can’t understand why I am being taken to see her. What should prevent her from coming to call upon me, in the usual order of things?’