'Very sweet of you to care so much for Bessie's girlish epistles,' he said lazily; 'they are full of affection, but the style of composition always recalls our dear Mrs. Nickleby. "Aunt Betsy was asking after you the other day: and that reminds me that the last litter of black Hampshires was sixteen--the largest number father ever remembers having. The vicar and his wife are coming to dinner on Tuesday, and do tell me if this new picture that everybody is talking about is really better than the Derby Day," and that sort of thing. Not a very consecutive style, don't you know.' 'Every word is interesting to me,' said Ida, with a look that told him she was not one of those young ladies who enjoy a little good-natured ridicule of their nearest and dearest. 'Is it long since you left Kingthorpe?' 'Not four-and-twenty hours. I promised Bessie that my very first occupation on coming to London should be to make my way down here to see you, in order that I may tell her faithfully and truly whether you are well and happy. She has a lurking conviction that you are unable to live without her, that you will incontinently go into a galloping consumption, and keep the fact concealed from all your friends until they receive a telegram summoning them to your death-bed. I know that is the picture Bessie's sentimental fancies have depicted.' 'I did not think Bessie was so morbid,' said Ida, laughing. 'No, I am not one of those whom the gods love. I am made of very tough material, or I should hardly have lived till now. I see before me a perspective of lonely, loveless old age--finishing in a governess' almshouse. I hope there are almshouses for governesses. 'Nobody will pity your loneliness or lovelessness,' retorted Brian, 'for they will both be your own fault.' She blushed, looking dreamily across the dark-gray river to the level shores beyond--the low meadows--gentle hills in the back-ground--the wooded slopes of Weybridge and Chertsey. If this speaker, whose voice dropped to so tender a tone, had been like the Brian of her imaginings--if he had looked at her with the dark eyes of Sir Tristram's picture, how differently his speech would have affected her! As it was, she listened with airy indifference, only blushing girlishly at his compliment, and wondering a little if he really admired her--he the owner of that glorious old Abbey--the wealthy head of the house of Wendover--the golden fish for whom so many pretty fishers must have angled in days gone by. 'Did you stay at The Knoll all the time,' she inquired, her thoughts having flown back to Kingthorpe; 'or at the Abbey?' 'At The Knoll. It is ever so much livelier, and my cousins like to have me with them.' 'Naturally. But I wonder you did not prefer living in that lovely old house of yours. To occupy it must seem like living in the Middle Ages.'