"Yes. I've been telling your brother,"--here she recapitulated her two proposals. "I'll get you to go over, and see if the place is in order." "Oh yes, Aunt Margaret, if you wish; but I've been some time away from the mill, and there are one or two matters--" "I hope you've brought back no new-fangled notions from town," interrupted the old lady, sharply. "Well, I've acquired a few ideas in conversation," said Guy, slowly. "John Cooper, no doubt, will show me the fallacy of them." "You'll have to live a long time before you're wiser than John Cooper. Tea?" as the servant appeared with some for which Guy had asked as he came through the house. "I never take tea between meals myself." "It's new-fangled," said Guy, meekly, "or _was_ once." "Eh, Godfrey," said Mrs Waynflete, "there's a plant broken in the ribbon border. That's Crawley, I'll be bound. He needs a whipping." But her tone, as she walked over to the border, had lost all its asperity. Godfrey and his dog were privileged offenders. "Going to Waynflete is a jolly idea," said Godfrey; "but Cousin Susan and Sarah Jane will be confounded bores, if they're to stay here for good." "They will so," said Guy. "As for Waynflete, it's a great move for my aunt at her age." "Oh, she's up to anything. I say, do you remember waking me up because you had the nightmare. You ate too many raspberries with those jolly girls in the old fruit-garden. That story would be a fortune to the fellows who _go_ in for spooks. Do you ever see ghosts now?" "If I do, I shall not come to you for protection. You threw too much cold water on that early effort of my subliminal self to rise into consciousness." "I say, I don't go in for that jargon. Give me a good square ghost with a sheet and a turnip, not all that psychical rot." "If ever you do see a ghost, my boy, it will certainly be a sheet and a turnip, and by George, how it'll frighten you!" Godfrey was boy enough to rise to this bait; though he did not like his brother very much nor get on very smoothly with him, his growls were not much more serious than those of Rawdie at the end of a stick. He was too prosperous to be discontented with his surroundings. When Constancy came down with her aunt to the Mill House--Florella had a previous engagement, and did not accept the invitation--she found plenty of contrasts to study, and she studied each with equal zest.