"How did you get on to-day with your little people?" asks Mr. Redmond, taking notice of her at once,--something, too, in her downcast attitude appealing to his sense of pity. "Was that boy of the Brixton's more than usually trying?" "Well, he was bad enough," says Georgie, in a tone that implies she is rather letting off the unfortunate Brixton from future punishment. "But I have known him worse; indeed, I think he improves." "Indeed, I think a son of his father could never improve," says the vicar, with a melancholy sigh. "There isn't an ounce of brains in all that family. Long ago, when first I came here, Sam Brixton (the father of your pupil) bought a cow from a neighboring farmer called George Gilbert, and he named it John. I thought that an extraordinary name to call a cow, so I said to him one day, 'Sam, why on earth did you christen that poor inoffensive beast John?' 'John?' said he, somewhat indignantly, 'John? Why wouldn't I call him John, when I bought him from George Gilbert?' I didn't see his meaning then,--and, I confess, I haven't seen it since,--but I was afraid to expose my stupidity, so I held my tongue. Do you see it?" He turns to Dorian. "Not much," says Dorian, with a faint laugh. CHAPTER XXXI. "One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow."--_Hamlet._ "One, that was a woman, sir."--_Hamlet._ Across the autumn grass, that has browned beneath the scorching summer rays, and through the fitful sunshine, comes James Scrope. Through the woods, under the dying beech-trees that lead to Gowran, he saunters slowly, thinking only of the girl beyond, who is not thinking of him at all, but of the man who, in his soul, Sir James believes utterly unworthy of her. This thought so engrosses him, as he walks along, that he fails to hear Mrs. Branscombe, until she is close beside him, and until she says, gently,-- "How d'ye do, Sir James?" At this his start is so visible that she laughs, and says, with a faint blush,-- "What! is my coming so light that one fails to hear it?" To which he, recovering himself, makes ready response: "So light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint." Then, "You are coming from Gowran?" "Yes; from Clarissa." "She is well?" "Yes, and, I suppose, happy,"--with a shrug. "She expects Horace to-morrow." There is a certain scorn in her manner, that attracts his notice. "Is that sufficient to create happiness?" he says, some what bitterly, in spite of himself. "But of course it is. You know Horace?" "Not well, but well enough," says Mrs. Branscombe, with a frown. "I know him well enough to hate him." She pauses, rather ashamed of herself for her impulsive confidence, and not at all aware that by this hasty speech she has made a friend of Sir James for life. "Hate him?" he says, feeling he could willingly embrace her on the spot were society differently constituted. "Why, what has he done to you?"