ll be a hard thing to transplant our young people,' said Mrs.
Frost, 'they have managed to be very happy here.'

'So hard of transplantation that I doubt the possibility,' said Isabel.
'You have made us take very deep root here.'

'Have you ever seen Cheveleigh, Mrs. Dynevor?'

'Never.'

'Poor Oliver! you and I think no place equal to our birthplace,' said
Mrs. Frost.

'I should think Mrs. Roland Dynevor would find it compensation. How
many beds did we make up, mother, the year my father was sheriff?'

'You must go to Jane for that,' said his mother, laughing. 'I'm sure I
never knew.'

'I believe it was twenty-seven,' said Oliver, gravely. 'I know there
were one hundred and eighty-five persons at the ball, and that the room
was hung with blue brocade, mother; and you opened the ball with Lord
Francis. I remember you had violet satin and white blonde.'

'My dear, how can you remember such things! You were a little bit of a
schoolboy!'

'I was sixteen' said Oliver. 'It was the year '13. I will have the
drawing-room hung with blue brocade, and I think Mrs. Roland Dynevor
will own that nothing can exceed it.'

'Very likely,' said Isabel, indifferently; and she escaped, beckoning
with her Clara, who was rather entertained with the reminiscences over
which granny and Uncle Oliver seemed ready to linger for ever; and yet
she was rather ashamed of her own amusement and interest, when she
heard her sister-in-law say, 'If he did but know how weary I am of that
hateful thing, a great house!'

'I hope Cheveleigh is not grander than Ormersfield,' said Clara, in an
odd sort of voice.

The ladies, for the first time, did not sit together this morning.
Clara practised, and Isabel took the Chapel in the Valley out of her
desk, and began a process of turning the Sir Roland into Sir Hubert.

Oliver and his mother were in the sitting-room, and, on James's return
from school in the middle of the day, he was summoned thither. Mrs.
Frost was sitting by the fire, rather tearful and nervous, and her son
stood full in the front, as dignified and magnanimous as size and
features would permit, and the same demeanour was instantly and
unconsciously assumed by his nephew, who was beyond measure chafed by
the attempt at a grand coup.

'I have requested your presence,' began Oliver, 'as the eldest son of
my elder brother, and thus, after my mother, the head of our family.
You are aware that when unfortunate circumstances invol