"You don't mean to say you're struck with _my_ appearance--I know it's not my strong point!" Perry said goodhumouredly enough, after all, and with a laugh which put that quantity at once in a better light. "But I like, as much as you please, to be praised for what I _am_" he added--"if you'll give me time to show that; for I suppose you've already noticed that in this country we _take_ time for our affairs, and perhaps no people among us all more than we of this family; which has gone on for ever so long, yon know, at its own pace and never allowed itself to be driven. We probably don't _look_ to you, however, as if you could lash us up--out of breath even as you may perhaps be with your errand; and that's all the appearance I pretend to make to anyone. What I leave to my mother I do leave to her," the young man further declared--more and more articulate, clearly, on finding himself so well listened to; "and of course she and Miss Midmore are as clever as they're handsome, if that's what you want." After achieving, with some unexpectedness for Ralph, this effort of propriety, he looked as in recovered self-possession from Mrs. Midmore to Molly, and then again very hard at his sister and back at his mother, so that it shouldn't be his fault, obviously, if they didn't trust his tact. He showed himself in short the man of sense and of consequence, though while speaking he had stared straight before him, not resting his eyes on Ralph, who, none the less, at once and cordially welcomed his remarks. "I hear you with the greatest interest, but even if we don't always take time enough in America for what we do, I'm not going to grant you that I haven't thoroughly thought of what I'm about in coming to you. And if you care to know it," Ralph continued, "it has taken but four days of old England to convince me that you're the happiest people in the most convenient country. I've been since I landed more pleased and amused than I can tell you." With which our young man again smiled and smiled. "Oh you've seen nothing as yet compared to what you will," Mrs. Midmore impatiently broke in--"and I know," she said, "that what Perry would like to say to you is that you'll have no idea of anything till you've seen and admired Drydown. That you shall do in good time--it's a place I shall make it _my_ care that you shall get to love, for that's where we're at home, where we're _what_ we are, if you understand; and where, as I see Perry desires to assure you, you shall have a horse of your own to ride, and the best home-grown victual that you'll anywhere find to eat, and a capital neighbourhood to receive civility from, to say nothing of one of the very finest views in England spread out before you."