“Will you write it for me yourself?”
“Very likely; but why?”
“Don't you think I shall value a note in your hand more than—”
“Nonsense; now, remember your lecture. Oh here are Uncle Robert and Katie.”
Mr. Winter was very gracious, and thanked Tom for all his attentions. He had been very pleased, he said, to make his nephew's acquaintance again so pleasantly, and hoped he would come and pass a day or two at Englebourn in the vacation. In his sad state of health he could not do much to entertain a young man, but he could procure him some good fishing and shooting in the neighborhood. Tom assured his uncle that nothing would please him so much as a visit to Englebourn. Perhaps the remembrance of the distance between that parish and the place where Mary was to spend the summer may have added a little to his enthusiasm.
“I should have liked also to have thanked your friend for his hospitality,” Mr. Winter went on. “I understood my daughter to say he was here.”
“Yes, he was here just now,” said Tom; “he must be below, I think.”
“What, that good Mr. Hardy?” said Mary, who was looking out of the window; “there he is in the street. He has just helped Hopkins into the rumble, and handed her things to her just as if she were a duchess. She has been so cross all the morning, and now she looks quite gracious.”
“Then I think, papa, we had better start.”
“Let me give you an arm down stairs, uncle,” said Tom; and so he helped his uncle down to the carriage, the two young ladies following behind, and the landlord standing with obsequious bows at his shop door, and looking as if he had never made an overcharge in his life.