Ellen, "and our
dear father did not sufficiently realise that if he encouraged him to
break away from his lessons, which we all took it in turns to give him,
it made him difficult to teach."

"And when Uncle John went away in the morning he gave us each one a
present of five new sovereigns wrapped in tissue paper," said Aunt
Laura, "and he would say, 'That is to buy fal-lals with.'"

"So our Uncle John and our Uncle Giles, the Rector, persuaded our father
to send Edward to Bathgate Grammar School, where he remained until he
went to Eton, riding over there on Monday morning and returning home on
Saturday," concluded Aunt Ellen.

Lord Meadshire took his leave of the old ladies, and Aunt Ellen said, "I
am afraid that our cousin Humphrey is ageing. We do not see him as much
as we used to do. He was very frequently at Kencote in the old days, and
we were always pleased to see him. With the exception of your dear
father, there is no man for whom I have a greater regard."

"He is a darling," said Cicely. "He is as kind as possible to everybody.
Would you like me to get you anything, Aunt Ellen? I must go to Muriel
now."

"No thank you, my dear," said Aunt Ellen. "Your Aunt Laura and I have
had sufficient. We will just rest quietly in the shade, and I have no
doubt that some others of our kind friends will come and talk to us."

It was getting towards the time for the bride and bridegroom to depart
for their honeymoon, which they were to spend in Norway. Walter had had
no holiday of any sort that year and had thought the desire for solitude
incumbent on newly married couples might reasonably be conjoined with
the desire for catching salmon; and Muriel had agreed with him.

The men were beginning to show a tendency to separate from the ladies.
The Rector of Kencote and the Vicar of Melbury Park, a new friend of
Walter's who happened, as the Squire put it, to be a gentleman, were
talking together by the buffet under the tent. The Vicar, who was thin
and elderly, and looked jaded, was saying that the refreshment to mind
and spirit, to say nothing of body, which came from living close to
Nature was incalculable, and the Rector was agreeing with him, mentally
reserving his opinion that the real refreshment to mind and spirit, to
say nothing of body, was to be found, if a man were strong enough to
find it, in hard and never-ending work in a town.

At the other end of the buffet Dick and Humphrey and Jim Graham were
eating s