‘Indeed! I wish I could hear more! Poor Mr. Aylmer! He was the first man who tried to teach me Latin. I wonder what has become of that mad fellow Edward, and Devereux, my father’s godson! Was not Mrs. Aylmer badly off? I cannot bear that people should be forgotten!’ ‘It is not so very long that we have lost sight of them,’ said Emily. ‘Eight years,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘He died six weeks after my father. Well! I have made my mother promise to come home.’ ‘Really?’ said Lilias, ‘she has been coming so often.’ ‘Aye—but she is coming this time. She is to spend the winter at the castle, and make acquaintance with all the neighbourhood.’ ‘His lordship is romancing,’ said Claude to Lily in a confidential tone. ‘I’ll punish you for suspecting me of talking hyperborean language—hyperbolical, I mean,’ cried Lord Rotherwood; ‘I’ll make you dance the Polka with all the beauty and fashion.’ ‘Then I shall stay at Oxford till it is over,’ said Claude. ‘You do not know what a treasure you will be,’ said the Marquis, ‘ladies like nothing so well as dancing with a fellow twice the height he should be.’ ‘Beware of putting me forward,’ said Claude, rising, and, as he leant against the chimney-piece, looking down from his height of six feet three, with a patronising air upon his cousin, ‘I shall be taken for the hero, and you for my little brother.’ ‘I wish I was,’ said Lord Rotherwood, ‘it would be much better fun. I should escape the speechifying, the worst part of it.’ ‘Yes,’ said Claude, ‘for one whose speeches will be scraps of three words each, strung together with the burthen of the apprentices’ song, Radara tadara, tandore.’ ‘Radaratade,’ said the Marquis, laughing. ‘By the bye, if Eleanor and Frank Hawkesworth manage well, they may be here in time.’ ‘Because they are so devoted to gaiety?’ said Claude. ‘You will say next that William is coming from Canada, on purpose.’ ‘That tall captain!’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘He used to be a very awful person.’ ‘Ah! he used to keep the spoilt Marquis in order,’ said Claude. ‘To say nothing of the spoilt Claude,’ returned Lord Rotherwood. ‘Claude never was spoilt,’ said Lily. ‘It was not Eleanor’s way,’ said Emily. ‘At least she cannot be accused of spoiling me,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘I shall never dare to write at that round table again—her figure will occupy the chair like Banquo’s ghost, and wave me off with a knitting needle.’ ‘Ah! that stain of ink was a worse blot on your character than on the new table cover,’ said Claude. ‘She was rigidly impartial,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘No,’ said Claude, ‘she made exceptions in favour of Ada and me. She left the spoiling of the rest to Emily.’ ‘And well Emily will perform it! A pretty state you will be in by the 30th of July, 1846,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘Why should not Emily make as good a duenna as Eleanor?’ said Lily.