“You should have seen him, Henrietta,” said his mother; “his shoes looked as if he had been walking through a river.” “Well, but so were all the others,” said Fred. “Very likely, but they are more used to it; and, besides, they are such sturdy fellows. I should as soon think of a deal board catching cold. But you--if there is as much substance in you, it is all height; and you know, Fred, you would find it considerably more tiresome to be laid up with a bad cold.” “I never catch cold,” said Fred. “Boys always say so,” said Mrs. Frederick Langford; “it is a--what shall I call it?--a puerile delusion, which their mammas can always defeat when they choose by a formidable list of colds and coughs; but I won’t put you in mind of how often you have sat with your feet on the fender croaking like an old raven, and solacing yourself with stick-liquorice and Ivanhoe.” “You had better allow him to proceed in his pursuit of a cold, mamma,” said Henrietta, “just to see how grandmamma will nurse it.” A knock at the door here put an end to the conversation, by announcing the arrival of Bennet, Mrs. Frederick Langford’s maid; who had come in such good time that Henrietta was, for once in her life, full dressed a whole quarter of an hour before dinner time. Nor was her involuntary punctuality without a reward, for the interval of waiting for dinner, sitting round the fire, was particularly enjoyed by Mr. and Mrs. Langford; and Uncle Geoffrey, therefore, always contrived to make it a leisure time; and there was so much merriment in talking over the walk, and discussing the plans for the Pleasance, that Henrietta resolved never again to miss such a pleasant reunion by her own tardiness. Nor was the evening less agreeable. Henrietta pleased grandmamma by getting her carpet-work out of some puzzle, and by flying across the room to fetch the tea-chest: she delighted grandpapa by her singing, and by finding his spectacles for him; she did quite a praiseworthy piece of her own crochet purse, and laughed a great deal at the battle that was going on between Queen Bee and Fred about the hero of some new book. She kept her list of Uncle Geoffrey’s manifold applicants on the table before her, and had the pleasure of increasing it by two men, business unknown, who sent to ask him to come and speak to them; by a loud and eager appeal from Fred and Beatrice to decide their contest, by a question of taste on the shades of grandmamma’s carpet-work, and by her own query how to translate a difficult German passage which had baffled herself, mamma, and Fred. However, Queen Bee’s number, fifty, had not been attained, and her majesty was obliged to declare that she meant in a week instead of a day, for which reason the catalogue was written out fair, to be continued.