Martindale
forbore to distress her by remarks, and replied to his cousin's question
whether the house was insured--

'For twenty thousand pounds, but that is nothing like the amount of
damage. I hardly know how we shall meet it. I must have John at home to
settle matters. How strange it is to look back. I remember as if it was
yesterday, when John was born, Mrs. Nesbit insisting on my pulling down
the poor old house, to make the place fit, as she said, for my son's
inheritance, and there is an end of it! Who would have told her that
she would burn it down herself, poor woman? She always detested the
old hall. Don't you remember the stags' antlers, Hugh? Ay, Johnnie, you
would have wondered at those--a dozen stags' heads with branching horns
in the hall.'

'Oh! tell me, grandpapa! Was it where you lived when you were a little
boy?'

'Ay, Johnnie,' said Lord Martindale, pausing to take him on his
knee. 'Cousin Hugh could tell you how we went on together there! Such
jackdaws' nests as used to be in the chimneys--'

'I do believe,' said his cousin, 'you have more regret at this moment
for the old house than for this one!'

'Well! when I think of going home, the old red pediment with the white
facings always comes into my mind, as it used to look up the avenue,
when we came back for the holidays. Those old shields with the
martlets--see, Johnnie, like that--' holding up the crest on a spoon,
'where the martins used to build their nests over the windows, were such
as I never saw anywhere else. I found one of them lying about at the
farm the other day.'

'Do you remember the hornet's nest in the wall of the garden--?'

'What a garden that was! They have never found any pear equal to that
jargonelle, where you ate twenty the first day of the holidays. What do
you think of that, Johnnie?'

'Ay, Johnnie, and I can tell you of something grandpapa did,' retorted
Mr. Hugh Martindale; and to Violet's diversion, the two old cousins
continued to make Johnnie an excuse for bringing up their boyish
memories, which seemed to rise on them the more vividly, now that the
great mansion no longer obstructed their view. It was complete oblivion
of everything else, and seemed to do infinite good to Lord Martindale,
but soon it was interrupted; Lady Elizabeth had driven over to beg to
carry the whole party back to Rickworth with her, or at least to take
home Violet and the children; but this could not be; Violet could not
leave Theodor