“Poor dear! I heard that she was a great trial to dear Mrs. Brownlow,” said Mary, in an imitative voice. “Why, do you know, she sometimes is up and out with her children before six o’clock in the morning; and then Colonel Brownlow went in one day at twelve o’clock, and found the whole family fast asleep on different sofas.” “The sensible way, too, to spend such days as these. To go out in the cool of the morning, and take a siesta, is the only rational plan!” “I’m afraid one must conform to one’s neighbours’ ways.” “Trust a woman for being conventional.” “I confess I did not like the tone in which my poor Carey was spoken of. I am afraid she can hardly have taken care enough not to be thought flighty.” “Mary! you are as absurd as the rest of them!” “Why? what have you seen of her?” “Nothing, I tell you, except once meeting her in the street, and once calling on her to ask whether her boy should learn German.” And David Ogilvie spoke with a vehemence that somewhat startled his sister. It was a July evening, and though the walls of the schoolmaster’s house were thick, it was sultry enough within to lead the brother and sister out immediately after dinner, looking first into the play-fields, where cricket was of course going on among the bigger boys, but where Mary looked in vain for her friend’s sons. “No, they are not much of cricketers,” said her brother; “they are small for it yet, and only take their turn in watching-out by compulsion. I wish the senior had more play in him. Shall we walk on by the river?”