r like a skin--tight as a drum; that was how he liked 'em, all
of a piece, none of your daverdy, scarecrow women! He gazed at Mrs.
Septimus Small, who took after James--long and thin.

"There's style about her," he went on, "fit for a king! And she's so
quiet with it too!"

"She seems to have made quite a conquest of you, any way," drawled Aunt
Hester from her corner.

Swithin heard extremely well when anybody attacked him.

"What's that?" he said. "I know a--pretty--woman when I see one, and all
I can say is, I don't see the young man about that's fit for her; but
perhaps--you--do, come, perhaps--you-do!"

"Oh?" murmured Aunt Hester, "ask Juley!"

Long before they reached Robin Hill, however, the unaccustomed airing had
made him terribly sleepy; he drove with his eyes closed, a life-time of
deportment alone keeping his tall and bulky form from falling askew.

Bosinney, who was watching, came out to meet them, and all three entered
the house together; Swithin in front making play with a stout
gold-mounted Malacca cane, put into his hand by Adolf, for his knees were
feeling the effects of their long stay in the same position. He had
assumed his fur coat, to guard against the draughts of the unfinished
house.

The staircase--he said--was handsome! the baronial style! They would
want some statuary about! He came to a standstill between the columns of
the doorway into the inner court, and held out his cane inquiringly.

What was this to be--this vestibule, or whatever they called it? But
gazing at the skylight, inspiration came to him.

"Ah! the billiard-room!"

When told it was to be a tiled court with plants in the centre, he turned
to Irene:

"Waste this on plants? You take my advice and have a billiard table
here!"

Irene smiled. She had lifted her veil, banding it like a nun's coif
across her forehead, and the smile of her dark eyes below this seemed to
Swithin more charming than ever. He nodded. She would take his advice
he saw.

He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms, which he described
as "spacious"; but fell into such raptures as he permitted to a man of
his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which he descended by stone steps,
Bosinney going first with a light.

"You'll have room here," he said, "for six or seven hundred dozen--a very
pooty little cellar!"

Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the house from the copse
below, Swithin came to a stop.

"There's a f