f all that could contribute to the comfort of its
future inhabitants.

Home I came, a glad and busy creature, revolving in my mind the wants of
the house and their speediest remedies--new paper for the drawing-room;
new wainscoting for the dining parlour; a stove for the laundry; a lock
for the wine-cellar; baizing the door of the library; and new painting
the hall;--to say nothing of the grand design of Clarke and the
flower-beds.

So full was I of busy thoughts, and so desirous to put my plans in train
without the loss of a moment, that although the tossing of apples had
now resolved itself into a most irregular game of cricket--George Copley
being batting at one wicket, with little Sam Roper for his mate at the
other;--Sam, an urchin of seven years old, but the son of an old player,
full of cricket blood, born, as it were, with a bat in his hand, getting
double the notches of his tall partner--an indignity which that
well-natured stripling bore with surprising good humour; and although
the opposite side consisted of Susan Wheeler bowling at one end, her old
competitor of the ragged jacket at the other, and one urchin in trousers,
and one in petticoats, standing out; in spite of the temptation of
watching this comical parody on that manly exercise, rendered doubly
amusing by the scientific manner in which little Sam stood at his
wicket, the perfect gravity of the fieldsman in petticoats, and the
serious air with which these two worthies called Susan to order whenever
she transgressed any rule of the game:--Sam will certainly be a great
player some day or other, and so (if he be not a girl, for really
there's no telling) will the young gentleman standing out. In
spite, however, of the great temptation of overlooking a favourite
divertisement, with variations so truly original, home we went, hardly
pausing to observe the housing of Master Keep's wheat harvest. Home
we went, adding at every step a fresh story to our Castle in the Air,
anticipating happy mornings and joyous evenings at dear Hatherden;--in
love with the place and all about it, and quite convinced that the hill
was nothing, the distance nothing, and the walk by far the prettiest
in the neighbourhood.

Home we came, and there we found two letters: one from Mr. Camden, sent
per coach, to say that he found they must go abroad immediately, and
that they could not therefore think of coming into Berkshire for a year
or more; one from the lawyer, left in charge