‘You live in a beautiful part of the country, I believe,’ Miss Mowbray remarked to Alec.
‘I don’t know; I like it, of course; but I don’t know that it is finer than any country with wood and a river.’
‘Oh, you have a river? I am so passionately fond of river scenery.’
‘Yes, and we have a castle,’ replied Alec; and before the ladies rose he had described not only the castle, but the moorland and the romantic dell which was his sister’s favourite retreat, to his much-interested neighbour.
When at length the ladies followed Miss Lindsay—a distant relation who superintended Mr. Lindsay’s establishment—out of the room, Alec felt as if the evening had suddenly come to an end.
Semple, who had vouchsafed him rather a cool nod in the evening, tried in vain to make him talk.
‘How do you like College?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘Dreadful underbred set. Why don’t you go to Oxford?’
Alec made no reply.