‘Whatever you may know, you don’t know Mrs. Swinford,’ said Miss Grey, hastily tying her bonnet-strings--‘No, I must go home, thank you; I want to be in before it’s quite dark. And really there’s not much to tell; nothing that I’ve seen with my eyes, as you may have, my dear, knocking about as a soldier’s wife; or as a clergyman’s wife may have heard dreadful things trickling out through her husband. No, I’ve no husband. I haven’t knocked about the world. I may have fancied things, being always so quiet here. But good-night, for I must go; it’s nearly dark, and my little maid is always frightened if I’m not in before dark----’ ‘The General will step round with you, Nelly dear--General, you’ll put on your greatcoat----’ ‘Of course I am going,’ said the General. It was a duty he never was negligent of, to see a lady who came by herself to tea safely home. XII ‘I have been on a tour of inspection,’ said Leo Swinford. He had met on another beautiful afternoon all the villagers, that is, the gentry of the village, party by party, and he had repeated to them all the same phrase: ‘A tour of inspection!’ Perhaps he liked the words, for he had the love of his adopted country for significant and appropriate phrases; and it seemed to that simplicity, which lies at the bottom of so much that is conventional on the other side of the Channel, that it was highly appropriate, and very English and business-like, to describe his prowl about the village in such words. But it was not until, after many little pauses and talks, he had come upon Lady William and her daughter, that he went further into the matter. When he saw the two figures coming along, one of which at least was like no one else in Watcham, Leo felt that he had reached the society in which he could speak freely: so, though he repeated his phrase, he did not stop there. ‘I know now,’ he said, nodding his head in half disgust, half satisfaction, ‘what is meant in England when you speak of the slums.’ ‘The slums!’ said Mab, who leant across her mother a little, with an ear attentive to hear what he should say; ‘but there are no slums in Watcham; it is in London and in the East End that there are slums. We have no slums here.’ Leo was too polite to say that what he said was not intended for little girls; but he gave that scarcely perceptible shrug of his shoulders which means the same thing, and answered with a smile: ‘I did not suppose, Miss Mab, that you were ever permitted to go there.’ ‘Not permitted,’ said Mab; ‘mother! why shouldn’t I be permitted? I hope I know every cottage in Watcham, and about all the people, though of course they change a little. Mother, I suppose he has been down by Riverside.’ ‘Very likely,’ said Lady William, ‘where the houses do not look attractive, we must allow. But Mab is right, Leo, though perhaps she should not be so ready with her opinion. The houses do not look nice, nor, in some cases, the people that are in them; but we have nothing very bad here.’