"O my dear, what _do_ I care for all that nonsense about knowing people? Surely there's enough of that here! Is this person to be called on, who has come to live in a house which nobody ever called at before, or that person, because nobody has ever heard of her people? I'm sick of it. Even mother won't call on Bathgate people, however nice they may be, and she's not nearly so stuck up as most of the county women." "Yes, I know all that, and of course it's nonsense. But you must admit that it is different with people who aren't gentle-people at all." "I'm not a fool, and I don't pretend that I'm going to make bosom friends of all Walter's patients, though I _am_ going to do what I can to make things pleasant all round. We shall see our friends in London, of course. Jim is going to give us a jolly good motor-car, and we shall be able to dine out and go to the play and all that if we want to, and people ask us. But it is all so unimportant, Cicely, that side of it. Walter wants to get out of it. He'll be very busy, and the best times we shall have will be in our own little house alone, or going right away when we get a holiday." "I dare say you are quite right," said Cicely. "Of course it will be jolly to have your own house and do what you like with it. Has Walter got a house yet?" "There is quite a decent one we can have where the man who wants to sell the practice lives. It is really bigger than we want, although it's only a semi-detached villa. I should be able to have my friends to stay with me. Cicely, you _must_ come directly we move in, and help to get things straight, if we go there." "Oh, you'll go there all right, if Walter has made up his mind about it," said Cicely. "Father thinks he will hold out, but he knows, really, that he won't. That's what makes him so wild." Both the girls laughed. "He is a funny old thing," said Muriel apologetically, "but he has been very nice to me." "Only because you have got ten thousand pounds, my dear, and are the right sort of match for Walter. He wouldn't be very nice to you if Walter had found you at Melbury Park; not even if you had your ten thousand pounds. Oh dear, I wish I had ten thousand pounds." "What would you do with it?" "I should travel. At any rate I should go away from Kencote. Muriel, I am sick to death of it." "Ah, that is because it seems dull after London. You haven't told me a word about all that you have been doing, and I have been talking about myself all the time." "I didn't care a bit about London. I didn't enjoy it at all--except the opera." "Don't try to be _blasee_, my dear girl. Of course you enjoyed it." "I tell you I didn't. Look here, Muriel, really it _is_ unfair the way the boys have everything in our family and the girls have nothing." "I do think it is a shame you are not allowed to hunt." "It isn't only that. It is the same with everything. I have seen it much more plainly since I went to London."