“What! never a sigh for London pleasures? Thou hast the great lady’s air and carriage in that brave blue taffety. The nun I knew three years ago has vanished. Can you so lightly renounce the splendour of this house, and your sister’s company, to make a prosing old father happy?” “Indeed, sir, I am ready to go with you.” “How she says that—with what a countenance of woeful resignation! But I will not make the Manor Moat too severe a prison, dearest. You shall visit London, and your sister, when you will. There shall be a coach and a team of stout roadsters to pull it when they are not wanted for the plough. And the Vale of Aylesbury is but a long day’s journey from London, while ’tis no more than a morning’s ride to Chilton.” “I could not bear for her to be long away from me,” said Hyacinth. “She is the only companion I have in the world.” “Except your husband.” “Husbands such as mine are poor company. Fareham has a moody brow, and a mind stuffed with public matters. He dines with Clarendon one day, and with Albemarle another; or he goes to Deptford to grumble with Mr. Evelyn; or he creeps away to some obscure quarter of the town to hob-nob with Milton, and with Marvel, the member for Hull. I doubt they are all of one mind in abusing his Majesty, and conspiring against him. If I lose my sister I shall have no one.” “What, no one; when you have Henriette, who even three years ago had shrewdness enough to keep an old grandfather amused with her impertinent prattle?” “Grandfathers are easily amused by children they see as seldom as you have seen Papillon. To have her about you all day, with her everlasting chatter, and questions, and remarks, and opinions (a brat of twelve with opinions), would soon give you the vapours.” “I am not so subject to vapours as you, child. Let me look at you, now the candles are lighted.” The footmen had lighted clusters of wax candles on either side the tall chimney-piece. Sir John drew his elder daughter to the light, and scrutinised her face with a father’s privilege of uncompromising survey. “You paint thick enough, i’ conscience’ name, though not quite so thick as the Spanish señoras. They are browner than you, and need a heavier hand with white and red. But you are haggard under all your red. You are not the woman I left in ’65.” “I am near two years older than the woman you left; and as for paint, there is not a woman over twenty in London who uses as little red and white as I do.” “What has become of Fareham to-night?” Sir John asked presently, when Hyacinth had picked up her favourite spaniel to nurse and fondle, while Angela had resumed her occupation at an embroidery frame, and a reposeful air as of a long-established domesticity had fallen upon the scene. “He is at Chilton. When he is not plotting he rushes off to Oxfordshire for the hunting and shooting. He loves buglehorns and yelping curs, and huntsmen’s cracked voices, far before the company of ladies or the conversation of wits.”