wife said,
speaking for the first time--for during the first portion of the
conversation she had been crying quietly, and had since been
busying herself in placing decanters and glasses and a huge
homemade cake on the table. "We all hope that you will soon bring a
mistress home. I said only this morning that you would never be
settling down until you did.

"And now, will you take a glass of wine and a slice of cake,
Squire?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Lechmere, I will; especially a piece of your cake.
Many and many a slice of it have I had here when a boy, and
famously good it always was."

Major Mallett ate two big slices of cake, drank a glass of wine,
and refusing the offer of a second glass, got up to go, saying:

"No, Mrs. Lechmere; I must not treat myself to another glass now. I
am going round to four or five other houses before I return to
lunch, and I know that the tray will be put on the table
everywhere. I can say that I have eaten so much cake here that I
cannot eat more. But I know I shall have to drink a glass of wine
at each place, and I can assure you that I am not accustomed to
tipple in the morning.

"Ah, here come your two sons across the fields. I will meet them at
the gate. If I were to begin a regular talk with Bob today, the
morning would be gone."

"George has changed wonderfully," Mrs. Lechmere said, as they
accompanied him to the gate. "It ain't his face so much, though he
is well nigh as brown as that cake, but it is his figure. I should
not have known him if he had not come along with Bob. He walks
altogether different."

"It is the drilling, Mrs. Lechmere. Yes, it is wonderful how much
drill does for a man; and there is a good deal in the cut of the
clothes. You see, there is not much difference in the material, but
George's were made at a good tailor's in London, and I suppose
Bob's were made down here."

Mallett stayed for a few minutes chatting at the gate with Bob, and
then, saying that he would certainly come in again before he went
up to town, started on a round of calls.

Chapter 6.

"And so you have bought a yacht, Major Mallett?"

"Yes; at least she is scarcely a yacht yet. I was going to have one
built, but I heard of one that had been ordered by Lord Haverstock,
who, they say, has been so hard hit at the Derby that he had to
tell Wanhill, the builder, that he could not take her. As the
season was getting rather late, the man was glad to sell her a
bargain, especially