‘Everybody I meet seems to be related to somebody else, or connected with some one I have met before,’ said Miss Mowbray. ‘You have all so many relations in this part of the country, and you seem never to forget any of them. In London it is different. People seldom know their next-door neighbours; and it is just a chance whether they keep up cousinships, and so on, or not.’ ‘Really? I think that is very unnatural.’ ‘Oh! _so_ unnatural! Life in London is so dreadfully conventional and superficial. Don’t you think so?’ ‘I dare say; but I have never been in London.’ ‘Have you, Mr. Semple?’ she asked of the gentleman on her left. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he answered shortly. He did not approve of Miss Mowbray paying any attention to Alec, regarding her as for the time being his property. On this Laura left off talking to Alec, and devoted herself to the amusement of Mr. Semple. Soon, however, she took advantage of his attention being claimed by the lady on his left, to turn again with a smile to Alec. ‘Mr. Semple tells me you are at College. My uncle is a professor there, but he has hardly any students, because history is not a compulsory subject in the examinations. How do you like being at College?’ Alec was grateful for her interest in him, and gave her his impressions of College life. Then she turned once more to her legitimate entertainer, who was by that time at liberty. Alec had already had far more intercourse with his lovely neighbour than he had dared to hope for; but the dinner was a long one; and as Mr. Semple’s left-hand neighbour happened to be a maiden aunt with money, she was able to compel his attention once more before the close of the meal. ‘You live in a beautiful part of the country, I believe,’ Miss Mowbray remarked to Alec. ‘I don’t know; I like it, of course; but I don’t know that it is finer than any country with wood and a river.’ ‘Oh, you _have_ a river? I am so passionately fond of river scenery.’ ‘Yes, and we have a castle,’ replied Alec; and before the ladies rose he had described not only the castle, but the moorland and the romantic dell which was his sister’s favourite retreat, to his much-interested neighbour. When at length the ladies followed Miss Lindsay--a distant relation who superintended Mr. Lindsay’s establishment--out of the room, Alec felt as if the evening had suddenly come to an end. Semple, who had vouchsafed him rather a cool nod in the evening, tried in vain to make him talk. ‘How do you like College?’ ‘Pretty well.’ ‘Dreadful underbred set. Why don’t you go to Oxford?’ Alec made no reply. ‘Or Edinburgh--they are a much better class of men at Edinburgh, I’m told.’ And Mr. Semple turned away to join a conversation about ‘warrants,’ and ‘premiums,’ and ‘vendor’s shares,’ ‘corners,’ ‘contangos,’ and ‘quotations,’ which to Alec was simply unintelligible.