"You know Mr. Beresford, aunt," said Barbara. "He's a favourite horror of yours. You recollect him at Hawley last year?"
"Oh, the odious man who carried on so shamefully with that rich woman,--the grocer's widow!" said the old lady. "Well, wasn't it a grocer?--merchant, then, if you like,--something to do with the City and the West Indies, I know. Oh, a dreadful person!"
"Charley Beresford's not a bad fellow, though," said Lyster. "Who did Sir Marmaduke say the other man was? Professor something."
"Perhaps Major Stone knows him," chimed in Mrs. Townshend.
"Who's the Professor that's coming down, Stone?" asked Lyster.
"I don't know. I only know two professors: Jackman the conjuror,--Jacquinto he calls himself,--and Holloway the ointment-man; and it's neither of them. This is some scientific or literary great gun that Sir Marmaduke was introduced to lately."
"Oh, dear!" said Barbara, plaintively, "what a dreadful idea! Probably an old gentleman, with gold spectacles and a bald head, covered all over with the dust of the British Museum, and carrying dead beetles and things in his pockets!"
"A professor!" said Miss Townshend; "we had one at Gimp House--a French one! I'm sure he'll take snuff and have silk pocket-handkerchiefs."
"And choke at his meals," added Barbara. "This is too horrible."
"I trust he won't come from any low neighbourhood," said Mrs. Vincent; "the small-pox is very bad in some districts in London."