The summer following that autumn and winter when Mortomley's Estate was in full course of liquidation proved, if not the hottest ever remembered, at least sufficiently warm to render Londoners who had to remain in town extremely impatient of their captivity, and to induce all those who could get away to make a rush for any place within a reasonable distance where sea-breezes or fresh air could be obtained. It was a summer in which everything was as dull as can well be imagined. Trade was dreadful; each man seemed losing money, and no man confessed to a balance of five pounds at his bankers'. If City people were to be believed, a series of unprecedented misfortunes compelled them, one and all, to ask for outstanding accounts and to request the return of such small amounts of money as in moments of mental aberration they had been induced to lend to their impecunious friends, whilst it happened most unfortunately that a series of disappointments and misfortunes equally unprecedented prevented the payment of accounts and the return of loans. Making, however, due allowance for excuses and exaggeration, things were very bad indeed. That badness affected all trades--touched all ranks. People were not rich enough to be ill, they could not afford to die, and so even the doctors and the undertakers found things hard, and believed fees and feathers had gone out of fashion. "Persons in course of liquidation were to be envied," so Mr. Swanland with a faint attempt at humour assured his visitors, while Mr. Asherill declared that really he wished he could go into the 'Gazette' and so get a holiday. If you were on sufficiently intimate terms to inquire concerning the fruitful vine and the olive branches belonging to any City man, you were certain to hear the vine and the olives had been transplanted temporarily to some easily accessible resting-place, to which the husband and father declared to you upon his word of honour he had not the means of proceeding on that especial Saturday afternoon when you spoke to him in Finch Lane. Nevertheless, had your way been his, you would have met him an hour after, taking his ticket for some well-known terminus. Even Mr. Dean could not manage to leave town, and Mrs. Dean was, therefore, at Scarborough with some Essex friends who had invited her to join their party. Mrs. Werner was at Dassell with her children, The old lord was dead, and that Charley, who had once wished to marry his cousin, proposed taking up his residence at the family seat. If this resolution were carried out, Mrs. Trebasson intended to leave the hall, notwithstanding her nephew's cordially expressed hope that she would still consider it her home. Naturally, therefore, Mrs. Werner availed herself of the opportunity, still left of paying a long visit to the old place, and Mr. Werner had begged her not to hurry back, as "he could do very well without her"--which utterance he did not intend to be ungracious, neither did his wife so understand it.