‘I defy anybody to arrive at the meaning of so contradictory a person,’ said Oliver, growing cool as she waxed hot, picking up a stone and aiming it at an audacious sparrow on a neighbouring bough. ‘You are perfectly aware,’ explained poor Fan, with laborious iteration, ‘that I consider a man who has had the education of a gentleman, and lived in the society of gentlemen, is qualified to belong to their rank if he will.’ ‘Thanks; I quite agree with you there; we only differ in what constitutes a gentleman.’ ‘Then let us agree to differ,’ said Fan, coming down from her stilts for the moment, and making an overture towards reconciliation. ‘Don’t quarrel any more this evening. I really want you to tell me if you think Clarke is right in this border, for I can never make up my mind.’ Oliver’s opinion was at her service, as his hands and feet would have been if she had cared to employ them. And he agreed with her that the dispute had gone far enough, when it was assuming too sharp a tone. That evening impressed itself on Oliver Constable’s mind, as certain days and nights which, in themselves, at the time, have offered no elements of distinction to arrest and excite us, stand out through all our subsequent histories. He could recall each incident and feature afterwards. The fact that he was the person to introduce the two Stanhopes at Fan’s tea-table, the characteristics and doings of the little incongruous group which gathered in the mill-house parlour—fair-haired, broad-shouldered, sanguine Harry trotting out his chimera; dark, narrow-chested, melancholious Horace leaning forward in the shadow to catch Harry’s words, and his alone, content in the middle of his natural scepticism to accept and act on Harry’s version of their prospects; Fan’s rapid conversion to Harry’s views and the effect his influence had on her; with Oliver himself playing the part of a critical and condemnatory chorus to the others—all remained legibly written on Oliver’s memory. And the second act in the garden was preserved to his consciousness in the same involuntary manner. He did not forget its smallest accessories—the low sunk sun touching the beds and borders with a final glory, and shining dazzlingly in his eyes and Fan’s, while she was unwontedly gay, and he quenched her gaiety by his savageness. Yet the two had ‘fallen out’ and made it up again, as even the most affectionate brothers and sisters will do, thousands of times before, without the circumstances making the smallest mark on his mind.