oying it is: particularly as it delays
the whole of our business for I can't tell how long: here is
Wednesday--the Simpsons come to-morrow, and you can't leave them. Then
on Saturday we have friends, as you know, coming for tennis. Yes,
indeed, you spoke of asking them yourself, but, of course, I had to
write the notes, and it is ridiculous, James, to look like that. We
must occasionally be civil to our neighbours: you wouldn't like to
have it said we were perfect bears. What was I saying? Well, anyhow it
comes to this, that it must be Thursday in next week at least, before
you can go to town again, and until we have decided upon the chintzes
it is impossible to settle upon one single other thing."

Mr. Denton ventured to suggest that as the paint and wallpapers had
been dealt with, this was too severe a view: but this his aunt was
not prepared to admit at the moment. Nor, indeed, was there any
proposition he could have advanced which she would have found herself
able to accept. However, as the day went on, she receded a little from
this position: examined with lessening disfavour the samples and price
lists submitted by her nephew, and even in some cases gave a qualified
approval to his choice.

As for him, he was naturally somewhat dashed by the consciousness of
duty unfulfilled, but more so by the prospect of a lawn-tennis party,
which, though an inevitable evil in August, he had thought there was
no occasion to fear in May. But he was to some extent cheered by the
arrival on the Friday morning of an intimation that he had secured at
the price of L12 10s. the four volumes of Poynter's manuscript diary,
and still more by the arrival on the next morning of the diary itself.

The necessity of taking Mr. and Mrs. Simpson for a drive in the car on
Saturday morning and of attending to his neighbours and guests that
afternoon prevented him from doing more than open the parcel until the
party had retired to bed on the Saturday night. It was then that he
made certain of the fact, which he had before only suspected, that he
had indeed acquired the diary of Mr. William Poynter, Squire of
Acrington (about four miles from his own parish)--that same Poynter
who was for a time a member of the circle of Oxford antiquaries, the
centre of which was Thomas Hearne, and with whom Hearne seems
ultimately to have quarrelled--a not uncommon episode in the career of
that excellent man. As is the case with Hearne's own collections, the
dia