I am sure he doesn't preach!'

'Oh no, nothing comes out of his mouth that he can help; trust him for
that.'

'Then how do you know?'

'By the stodgy look of him. He would be the awfullest of prosers if he
had the gift of the gab.'

'You are an ungrateful boy,' said Rose. 'I am sure he must be very kind
to you.'

'Can't help it,' said Herbert. 'The old fellow would be well enough if
he had any go in him.'

'I am sure he took you out hunting,' exclaimed Constance indignantly,
'the day they took us to the meet. And he leapt all the ditches when
you--'

He broke in, 'Well, what was I to do when I've never had the chance to
learn to sit a horse? You'll see next winter.'

'Did you hurt yourself?' asked Rose, rather mischievously.

To which Herbert turned a deaf ear and began to expatiate upon the game
of Northmoor, till other sounds led him away to fall upon the other
_tete-a-tete_ between Ida and Sibyl Grover. In Ida's mind the honours of
Northmoor were dearly purchased by the dulness and strictness of the life
there.

'My uncle was as cross as two sticks if ever Herbert or I were too late
for prayers, and he said it was nonsense of Herbert to say that kneeling
at church spoilt his trousers--kneeling just like a school child! It
made me so faint!'

'And it looks so!'

'I tried, because Lady Adela and Miss Bertha and all do,' said Ida, 'and
they looked at me! But it made me faint, as I knew it would,' and she
put her head on one side.

'Poor dear! So they were so very religious! Did that spoil it all?'

'Well, we had pretty things off the Christmas-tree, and we lived quite as
ladies, and drove out in the carriage.'

'No parties nor dances? Or were they too religious?'

'Ma says it is their meanness; but my aunt, Lady Northmoor, did say
perhaps it would be livelier another year, and then we should have had
some dancing and deportment lessons. I up and told her I could dance
fast enough now, but she said it would not be becoming or right to Lady
Adela's and Miss Morton's feelings.'

'Do they live there?'

'Not in the house. Lady Adela has a cottage of her own, and Miss Morton
stops with her. Lady Adela is as high and standoffish as the monument,'
said Ida, pausing for a comparison.

'High and haughty,' said Sibyl, impressed. 'And the other lady?'

'Oh, she is much more good-natured. We call her Bertha; at least, she
told us that we might call her anything but that horrid Cousin Bertha