She seemed pleased with my reply. ‘You can have no idea how good he is,’ she said. ‘But he is a man of strong prejudices, and it is hard to move him when he has once made up his mind with regard to any person or thing. Not that I mean to find fault with him, for as far as I am concerned I have not the least cause of complaint. I cannot tell you how kind he is to me, or how much I owe him. He is the best old darling in the world!’
‘He is surely not so very old,’ I remarked, smiling at her enthusiasm.
‘Don’t you think so?’ returned she. ‘He seems quite old to me; but of course you are much older than I am, and therefore judge differently of age. Would you mind telling me how old you are? I know it is very rude of me to ask, but I always seem to do what I ought not.’
I laughed, and informed her that I was in my twenty-eighth year.
‘Nearly ten years older than I am,’ she remarked, ‘and fourteen years younger than Mr Aslatt; so you see he really is old.’
‘Not old for a man,’ I ventured to say.
‘Yes; he is,’ contradicted my companion impatiently, shaking back her golden hair.
At this moment Mr Aslatt entered the room in which we were sitting. ‘I have just been thinking, Rose,’ he said, ‘that if it is fine to-morrow, we might ride over to Ashdene. I daresay Miss Bygrave would like to see the old Priory there.—Are you fond of riding?’ he added, addressing me.
It was long since I had been in the saddle; but in earlier years I had exceedingly enjoyed the exercise, and I told him so.
‘Then I hope you will enjoy a ride to-morrow,’ he said. ‘I think I have a horse that you will like, and Rose will lend you a riding-habit.’