After this Mr. Philip Selby came several times. Joan always assisted at the interviews in the same pleased spectatorship. It occurred to her after a while that the information of the talkers was not very extensive. She seemed to hear the same names over and over again--almost the same remarks--which reduced Joan’s admiration, and made her feel that perhaps after all it was only a way they had, and did not imply the profound erudition she had admired so much: but still it was finer talk than anything she had heard before. Then Harry, came interrupting these elegant conversations. Harry did not think anything of them at all; he had no literary tastes any more than the rest of the family. He was not at all given to reading, and the consequence of Mrs. Joscelyn’s recommendation to him of Mr. Philip Selby, and his society, resulted in a strong dislike on Harry’s part to Mr. Selby, and desire never to see him again. Young Selby was Harry’s friend, a young man who was not good for very much; and he also had the strongest objection to his cousin. There had not been much heard of Mr. Selby while Harry was at the White House; but just after the luggage and the hamper had been sent off, and when peace had for a little while returned, he came to pay one of his usual visits. And perhaps it was that Mrs. Joscelyn was preoccupied; perhaps that Mr. Selby had something on his mind. The conversation flagged. Joan, who now never made any attempt to put by her knitting, and permitted her mother’s basket to exhibit its store of mending freely, took notice of a long pause that occurred in the talk, and she hastened to do what she could, in her straight-forward way, to fill up the gap. “Mother’s had a deal to think of lately,” she said. “I think she should take a nap in the afternoon. Many are a bit drowsy after dinner. I think it would do her a deal of good if she were to put up her feet upon the sofa, and take a bit of a doze.” “Joan,” cried poor Mrs. Joscelyn, wounded in her tenderest feelings, “when did you ever see me doze?” “There,” said Joan, promptly, “that’s just what I say. It would do you a deal of good. You were always one for keeping up; but ‘a stitch in time saves nine,’ and you’ve had more to think of than ordinary. Just you close your eyes a little bit, and I’ll talk to Mr. Selby. He’ll not mind for ten minutes. They tell me you’re getting on wonderfully with the railway; and is there enough of travellers from Wyburgh to Ormsford to make it pay?” “I have my doubts,” Selby said. “I have more than doubts. I hope you have not got money in it. There is no traffic, nor manufactories, nor anything like that. Just two or three farmers, and ordinary folk, and potatoes, and such like, and milk-cans; but nothing to keep up a railway. I’ve often wondered, now, a clever man like you, what made you take it in hand?”