'I am sure,' said Mrs Osborne, 'she has been most unfortunate in her first evening here. I am exceedingly sorry for what happened last night. I will go up and see her myself.' 'She said, mother,' added Kate, 'that as she had got very little sleep last night, she would now try and get some. She also said we were not to put ourselves to the least inconvenience, and that no doubt she should be down for luncheon.' 'I really don't know, George, what possessed you to keep the poor girl in that conservatory so long. Even with the doors open, half-an-hour is as long as I could stand the place.' 'I am exceedingly sorry, mother. I was very thoughtless, I admit. Kate and Alice have often been in the place with the door shut for a much longer time, and I never thought that she might not be able to bear the place as well as they who are used to it. Kate, do you think a doctor had better see her?' 'Oh no,' answered Kate. 'She will be quite well again as soon as she has had a sleep.' 'Talking of the overwhelming smell of flowers reminds me,' broke in Nevill, who saw the conversation bore heavily on George, 'I have to thank the beautiful azalea-tree for my life. When I was once out West with my dear old friend Cross-Poll after buffaloes the thing happened. Cross-Poll was a most remarkable man. He was at least six feet high, fifty-four inches around the chest, with limbs in proportion. I have heard he could take a buffalo by the horns and swing the beast around his head. But, Mrs Osborne, we must not believe all we hear on our travels--' 'Nor, Mr Nevill,' said Alice, 'all we hear when we sit at home.' 'Nor, Miss Osborne, as you say, all we hear when we sit at home, except when we have the word of a credible eye-witness. In this case I would not dream of asking you to believe Cross-Poll caught a bull by the horns and swung the beast around his head, for I did not see it, and I make it a point never to accept as true wonders at second hand. If a thing isn't good enough to happen in my presence, I am not going to bother my friends or burden my memory with it. My theory is this: I am, as men go, blessed with a good memory for remarkable facts--' 'And fictions,' added Alice, with a demure smile. 'You may call a thing a fiction, I don't. Well, my theory is: If there is to be anything remarkable, and it does not go to the trouble of calling me as a witness, I am not going to bother myself with making out a report of the case. You, Osborne, remember Cross-Poll at school?' 'I do not,' said George gravely, 'recollect a boy or man of that name at any school I was at. He may have been at Rugby, and I forget his name.' Osborne answered the question seriously. Alice laughed. 'Don't you remember, George, when you were at school with Mr Nevill in America?' George smiled faintly.