"That's all," answered Sir Jekyl.
"Never pay at market, you know," said Sir Paul Blunket. "I consider any sheep kept beyond two years as lost."
"A lost sheep, and sell him as a Huggletonian," rejoined Sir Jekyl.
"It is twenty years," murmured the Bishop in Lady Alice's ear, for he preferred not hearing that kind of joke, "since I sate in this parlour."
"Ha!" sighed Lady Alice.
"Long before that I used, in poor Sir Harry's time, to be here a good deal—a hospitable, kind man, in the main."
"I never liked him," croaked Lady Alice, and wiped her mouth.
They sat so very close to Sir Jekyl that the Bishop merely uttered a mild ejaculation, and bowed toward his plate.
"The arrangements of this room—the portraits—are just what I remember them."
"Yes, and you were here—let me see—just thirty years since, when Sir Harry died—weren't you?"