"Yes; he is in very good business, I believe; you saw Catherine, you say?"
"Yes, for a minute only. I ran in to kiss Kate and the children, while they were harnessing a horse for me at the tavern. Kate looks very well herself. The children didn't remember much of Uncle Charlie; but they are pretty, healthy little things, nevertheless."
The grandmother assented to the commendation of her daughter's family; she thought them remarkably fine children. "Catherine was a very fortunate woman," she said; "Mr. Clapp was a very superior man, so very clever that he must do well; and the children were all healthy—they had gone through the measles wonderfully, that spring."
Charlie had not quite as elevated an opinion of his brother-in-law as the females of the family; he allowed his mother's remark to pass unnoticed, however.
"And so Mr. Taylor has given up Colonnade Manor," he continued.
"Yes; he has just sold it to Mr. de Vaux, a friend of Mr.
Wyllys," replied Miss Patsey.
"Why did he sell it, pray?"
"Well, the young ladies liked better to live about at hotels and boarding-houses in the summer, I believe; they thought it was too dull at Longbridge. Mr. Taylor didn't care much for the place: you know there are some people, who, as soon as they have built a house, and got everything in nice order, want to sell; it seems as if they did not care to be comfortable; but I suppose it is only because they are so fond of change."
We may as well observe, by way of parenthesis, that this fancy of getting rid of a place as soon as it is in fine order, would probably never occur to any man but an American, and an American of the particular variety to which Mr. Taylor belonged.
"I don't wonder at his wanting to get rid of the house; but the situation and the neighbourhood might have satisfied him, I think," said Charlie, as he accepted Miss Patsey's invitation to eat the nice supper she had prepared for him.