"So they will still look down upon us--or frown, as the case may be," said the younger girl. "How savage I should be if I were an ancestor, and new people came to turn out my descendant!" "We haven't turned him out. We only buy him out," said her mother, "which is quite a different thing. It is the modern way of taking the baron's castle--without bloodshed and unpleasantness." "It is a great shame, all the same, that he should have to turn out," exclaimed the younger girl, indignantly. "I am sure he is a nice fellow, which makes it all the worse, because--because----" "Because every one says so," continued her elder sister; "as if that was a reason!" "No! because he has _such good horses_. When a man keeps them, in such buckle too, there can't be much wrong with him." "What _is_ the reason that he can't live in a place like this, I wonder?" queried Miss Lexington in a musing tone. "A bachelor, too! Men don't seem to know when they are well off. He ought to try a dry year on one of our Paroo runs, if he wants a change. That would take the nonsense out of him. Our vile sex at the bottom of it, I suppose!" "I _did_ catch a whisper in London, before we left," said Miss Violet, cautiously. "You always do," interrupted her sister. "I hope you don't talk to Pinson confidentially. What was it?" "Only that a girl that every one seemed to know about wouldn't have him, and that he nearly went out of his mind about it: wouldn't hear of living in England afterwards." "Poor fellow! he'll know better some day--won't he, mother? He must be a romantic person to go mooning about, wanting to die or emigrate, for a trifle like that." "I sometimes wonder if you girls of the present day have hearts, from the way you talk," mused the matron. "However, I suppose they're deeper down than ours used to be. But I don't like my girls to sneer at true love. It's a sacred and holy thing, without which we women would have a sad time in this world. But, in our own country, men have done rash things in the agony of disappointment. You have heard of young Anstruther?" "Oh yes, long ago. He went home and shot himself because of a silly girl. I suppose he's sorry for it now." "Hearts are much the same, in all countries and ages, depend upon it, my dears; they make people do strange things. But let us hope that there will be no unruly promptings in this family." "Quite so, mother--same here; but I suppose, as Longfellow tells us, 'as long as the heart has woes,' all sorts of droll things will happen. And now suppose we go and look at the stables before afternoon tea; I want to see the hunters and polo ponies. The garden we can see tomorrow morning." * * * * *