The footman, it is true, was English, and an unknown quantity, but even to him Miss Eliza found something to say. “They will be in, both Mrs. Rowland and the young lady? That is very lucky for me, for in a fine day like this most people are on the road. They will be using the long drawing-room with the view? Well, I do not blame them: it is best, though Lady Jean used to keep it for company.--Who will ye say? Oh, there is my card, that is the most sensible way.--My dear Mrs. Rowland, I am very glad to make your acquaintance. We have heard just everything that is good of you, and I have been most anxious to welcome you to the parish. And this is Miss Rowland? Dear me, how delighted all the young folk will be to hear of such an addition. And now that you have got settled down a little, I hope you like the house?” “The house is delightful,” said Evelyn, “and so are the views. My husband prepared me for the beauty of the country, but he said very little about the excellence inside.” “He would know but little,” said Miss Eliza. “They’re not noticing about houses, the men folk. And as for the views, we have been settled here this forty years since we came quite young creatures ourselves; but I’ve never tired of this. I’ve never got indifferent, as you generally do, with what you’ve seen every day: it’s just as new to me now as it was at the first.” “It is a beautiful country,” said Evelyn civilly. “Is it not--just a blessed country! Eh, if the people were but equal. ‘Every prospect pleases,’ you remember the hymn says, ‘and only man--’ No, no, I will not say that man is vile: that is a great deal too strong. What I complain of in very religious folk is that they are censuring their neighbours, when perhaps, if the truth was known, their neighbours--But we must not pursue that subject. Man is not vile, but he’s not so satisfying as the everlasting hills.” “Oh,” said Marion, with the little fictitious intonation which copied Evelyn’s, “but men are more amusing than the mountains.” She herself was not by any means so amusing in her diction since she had become an echo of Mrs. Rowland in her gesture and voice. “The young ladies,” said Miss Eliza with a laugh, “are mostly of that opinion, and I should not say nay, for I have not less than six nephews coming to-morrow for tennis, and everything that they can find that is diverting. They are either at the college, for there’s a summer session in the scientific classes, or else they’re in offices, and they come down to us on Saturday to play. I hope you’ll come up to the Burn, you and your brother, to meet my young men. There will be a view or two as well. And after the diversion there will be a kind of supper, and then they will see you home.”