‘Well, I thought that perhaps it was I who disturbed you.’
‘And you liked me?’
‘I was very interested in you.’
‘Well, that is the blessed miracle which I can never get over. You, with your beauty, and your grace, and your rich father, and every young man at your feet, and I, a fellow with neither good looks, nor learning, nor prospects, nor—’
‘Be quiet, sir! Yes, you shall! Now?’
‘By Jove, there is old Mrs. Potter at the window! We’ve done it this time. Let us get back to serious conversation again.’
‘How did we leave it?’
‘It was that hog, I believe. And then Mr. Beeton. But where does the hog come in? Why should you weep over him? And what are the Lady’s Observations on the Common Hog?’
‘Read them for yourself.’
Frank read out aloud: ‘“The hog belongs to the order Mammalia, the genus sus scrofa, and the species pachydermata, or thick-skinned. Its generic characters are a long, flexible snout, forty-two teeth, cloven feet, furnished with four toes, and a tail, which is small, short, and twisted, while, in some varieties, this appendage is altogether wanting.”—But what on earth has all this to do with housekeeping?’