He was the possessor, too, of an admirable collection of paintings, mostly of grim and melancholy subjects, but valuable in their way, and well in accordance with the mummies, sarcophagæ, curious gems and stones, and other curiosities which he had gathered on his travels and stored up in remembrance of them. His was a charming household, and his collection of odds and ends were the only gloomy things in it. His wife, Hannah Hindes, was a cultured and intelligent gentlewoman, eminently fond of him, and regarding his powerful brain and capacity for business with an admiration which bordered on reverence; and he was the father of three handsome and healthy children, all of whom he loved, and one of whom he idolised--to wit, Master Walter Hindes, his only son, an infant of some two years old. To see Henry Hindes with this child in his fine old garden was to see him at his best--he was so partial to floriculture, and such a student of botany; though in this, as in other things, he would not allow fashion to trample sweetness and commonsense under foot. In the large, shady garden of ‘The Old Hall’ were to be found all sorts of flowers, growing together in the same bed. No ribbon borders or collections of prize begonias, or pelargoniums, of giant blossoms, or dwarfed bushes, transformed it into the semblance of a nurseryman’s plot of ground; but sweet-smelling herbs grew amongst the choicer plants, and high and low bloomed side by side, as they used to do in the long ago. In the summer weather, Henry Hindes spent almost all his spare time in his garden with his children, and was apparently quite happy with his own thoughts and them. Hannah Hindes was a woman who never grated on her husband’s finer sensibilities. She was loving, tender and conscientious; but she seldom obtruded herself or her opinions on him, and never in opposition to his own. She was always there when needed, calm and intelligent, ready to give advice but not eager to thrust it down one’s throat; a restful sort of woman for a man to come home to after a hard and perhaps harassing day’s work. And she had in her turn an admirable husband, for Mr Hindes was mild-tempered and indulgent; never found fault with anything his wife did, or wished to do, and was always quick to think of her comfort and that of her children. A few mornings after the dance at the Bouchers’, they were strolling together under the shade of an avenue of elm trees, which formed the approach to the house, and he was telling her of his interview with Frederick Walcheren. One of the little girls, Elsie, was holding her mother by the hand, whilst the other, Laura, was wandering in front of them, and the son and heir, was perched on his father’s shoulder, enjoying a ride. In the length and breadth of England, you could hardly have found a more united, or happier family.