“Well, at all events we have had a very jolly season,” said Kate, not disposed to commit herself; “and what we have to do is to keep things going, and show him the country, and not be dull even now.” Which admirable suggestion they carried out with all their hearts. Herbert’s thoughts, however, were not, I fear, so far advanced as Sophy supposed. It was not that he did not think of that necessity of marrying which Miss Augustine enforced upon him in precisely the same words, every time she saw him. “You are wasting time--you are wasting my time, Herbert,” she said to him when he came back to Whiteladies, in July. Frankly she thought this the most important point of view. So far as he was concerned, he was young, and there was time enough; but if she, a woman of seven-and-fifty, was to bring up his heir and initiate him into her ideas, surely there was not a moment to be lost in taking the preliminary steps. Herbert was very much amused with this view of the subject. It tickled his imagination so, that he had not been able to refrain from communicating it to several of his friends. But various of these gentlemen, after they had laughed, pronounced it to be their opinion that, by Jove, the old girl was not so far out. “I wouldn’t stand having that little brat of a child set up as the heir under my very nose; and, by Jove, Austin, I’d settle that old curmudgeon Farrel’s hopes fast enough, if I were in your place,” said his advisers. Herbert was not displeased with the notion. He played with it, with a certain enjoyment. He felt that he was a prize worth anybody’s pursuit, and liked to hear that such and such ladies were “after him.” The Duke of Ptarmigan had a daughter or two, and Sir Billy Trotter’s sister might do worse, her friends thought. Herbert smoothed an incipient moustache, late in growing, and consequently very precious, and felt a delightful complaisance steal over him. And he knew that Sophy, his cousin, did not despise him; I am not sure even that the young coxcomb was not aware that he might have the pick of either of the girls, if he chose; which also, though Kate had never thought on the subject, was true enough. She had faithfully given him over to her younger sister, and never interfered; but if Herbert had thrown his handkerchief to her, she would have thought it sinful to refuse. When he thought on the subject, which was often enough, he had a kind of lazy sense that this was what would befall him at last. He would throw his handkerchief some time when he was at the Hatch, and wheresoever the chance wind might flutter it, there would be his fate. He did not really care much whether it might happen to be Sophy or Kate.