"People used in England, not very long ago, to drink a bottle or two of wine after dinner each man," said Meredith; "but it is not quite so bad as that nowadays." Flora was vexed, but silent; she too remembered bowls of punch and baskets of champagne in _her_ father's time. "And gaming--" said Maggie, and stopped. "What?" said Meredith. "I was thinking how fond Fenton was of it." "Oh hush, Maggie! he wasn't!" Esther exclaimed. "It was just the same thing, Uncle Eden said." "Where is Fenton?" said Meredith. "He's coming to-morrow. He likes champagne too, and other wine when he can get it. And Bolivar--Bolivar put something in his lemonade!" "Why, Maggie," said Meredith, smiling and passing his hand gently over the little girl's head, "you are taking gloomy views of life!" "I was only thinking, Ditto. But it seems to me so very strange that people should be worse now than when they were heathen Saxons." "People are a mixture now, you must remember. The good part are a great deal better, and I suppose the bad part are a great deal worse." "Worse than the heathen!" cried Flora. "Well, judge for yourself. But darkness in the midst of light is always the blackest, and not only by contrast either." "If you think people are so awful, I should think you would go to work and preach to them," said Esther. "I will," said Meredith calmly. "Then what will you do with Meadow Park?" "Oh, he proposes to turn that into an hospital." "An hospital!"---- "Flora is romancing a little," said her brother. "There are no infirmaries put up yet. How sweet this place is! Do you smell the fir trees and pines? The air is a spice-box." "The air a box!" cried Maggie laughing. "I mean it is full of perfumes, like a spice-box. And these old stones, laid up here by the soldiers' hands of a hundred years ago, just make a dining place for us now. But it's pretty! And the air is nectar." "You can choose whether you will smell it, or swallow it," remarked his sister. "By your leave, I will do both. Well, shall I go on?" CHAPTER IV.