‘I am so glad you see it, Rotherwood. It is what I am always trying to believe in, and I hope the likeness is a little within as well as without--but we poor creatures who have been tumbled about the world get sophisticated, and can’t attain to the sweet, blundering freshness of “Honest Simplicity.”’ ‘It is a plant that must be spontaneous--can’t be grown to order.’ ‘His lordship’s carriage at the door,’ announced Macrae. ‘Ah, well! Trains must be caught, I suppose. I’m glad you’re settled here, Lilias. I feel as if a sort of reflex of old Beechcroft were attainable now.’ ‘I hope it won’t be a G.F.S. day next time you come!’ ‘Oh, it was very jolly. I shall bring my child next time, if I can get her out of the clutches of the governesses for a day, but it is a hard matter. They look daggers at me if I put my head into the schoolroom.’ ‘You always were a dangerous element there, you know.’ ‘Poor dear Eleanor! What did I not make her go through! But she never went the length of one of my lady’s governesses, who declared that she had as much call to interfere in my stable, as I had with her schoolroom.’ ‘What mischief were you doing there?’ ‘Well, if you must know, I was enlivening a very dry and Cromwellian abridgement with some of Lily’s old cavalier anecdotes, so Lily was at the bottom of it, you see.’ ‘But did she fall on you then and there?’ ‘No, no. I trust my beard is too grey for that. But she looked at me with impressive dignity such as neither poor little Fly nor I could stand, and afterwards betook herself to Victoria, who, I am happy to say, sent her to the right about.’ ‘As I am about to do,’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘for if you don’t miss your train, it will be by cruelty to animals. No, you’ve not got time to shake hands with all that rabble. Be off with you.’ ‘Ah! I shall tell Victoria that if she sees me tomorrow it’s all owing to your unpitying punctuality,’ said he, shaking himself into his overcoat. ‘Dear old fellow!’ said Lady Merrifield, as she turned from the front door, while he drove off. ‘He is like a gust of old Beechcroft air! But I should think Victoria had a handful.’ ‘She knew what she was doing,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘I always thought she married him for the sake of breaking him in.’ ‘And very well she has done it, too,’ returned Aunt Jane. ‘Only now and then he gets a holiday, and then the real creature breaks out again. But it is much better so. He would not have been of half so much good otherwise.’ Lady Merrifield looked from one to the other, but said no more, for all the young folks were round her; but every one was so much tired, children, servants, and all, that prayers were read early, and all went to their rooms. Yet, tired as she was, Lady Merrifield sat on in her sister Jane’s room, in her dressing-gown, talking according to another revival of olden time. ‘What did Ada mean about Rotherwood? Isn’t he happy?’