"What sort of weather had you in Hampshire?" asked Lord Hetherington, in one of those irksome pauses usually selected by some individual who is at once commonplace and good-natured enough to distinguish himself by uttering an inane sentiment, or asking an awkward question. "Awful, I should fancy," said Lady Hetherington, in the most languid of her languid tones. "Awful, if it has been like the weather here. Were you really obliged to travel, Mr. Gould? I can't fancy any one going anywhere in such weather." "As it happened," said Mr. Gould, with a rather impatient glance towards her ladyship--for he could not always smile complacently when she manifested her normal unconsciousness that anybody could have anything to do not entirely dependent on his or her own pleasure and convenience--"as it happened, I had not to go. A few days after I told his lordship the particulars of the sale of land, I had a letter informing me that the matter was all off for the present." "Indeed!" said Lord Hetherington; "a domed bore for Langley, isn't it? He has been wanting to pick up something in that neighbourhood for a long time. But the sale will ultimately come off, I suppose, unless some one buys the land over Langley's head by private contract." "There's no fear of that, I think," said Mr. Gould; "but I took precautions. I should not like Sir John to lose the slice off Woolgreaves he wants. The place is in a famous hunting country, and the plans are settled upon--like Sir John, isn't it?--for his hunting-box." "I don't know that part of Hampshire at all," said Lord Hetherington, delighted at finding a subject on which he could induce one of his guests to talk without his being particularly bound to listen. "Very rich and rural, isn't it? Why didn't the--ah, the person sell the land Langley wanted there?" "For rather a melancholy reason," replied Mr. Gould, while Lady Hetherington and the others looked bored by anticipation. Rather inconsiderate and bad taste of Mr. Gould to talk about "melancholy reasons" in a society which only his presence and that of the secretary rendered at all "mixed." But Mr. Gould, who was rather full of the subject, and who had the characteristic--so excellent in a man of business in business hours, but a little tiresome in social moments--of believing that nothing could equal in interest his clients' affairs, or in importance his clients themselves, went on, quite regardless of the strong apathy in the face of the countess. "The letter which prevented my going down to Woolgreaves on the appointed day was written by a lady residing in the house, to inform me that the owner of the property, a Mr. Creswell, very well known in those parts, had lost his only son, and was totally unfit to attend to any business. The boy was killed, I understand, by a fall from his pony." "Tom Creswell killed!" exclaimed Walter Joyce, in a tone which directed the attention of every one at the table to the "secretary."