"Oh, how severe you are! I suppose you mean you don't admire that style? Well, now you mention it, perhaps—"
"I simply mean what I say. I was not aware that there was a Miss Blake on the ground to-day."
"Well, I am surprised! You are in the dark! Do you see those tall girls in black and white, close by their mother, that fine woman in green?"
"Perfectly. And which is the beautiful Miss Blake?"
"Oh!" with a little giggle. "Fancy! Which is the beautiful Miss Blake? Why, the elder one, of course: there! she is just looking round."
Mr. Thorne put up his eye-glass. "Indeed!" he said; "and who may Miss Blake be?"
"They have come to that pretty white house where old Miss Hayward lived. Mr. Blake was a relation of hers, and she left it to him. He has some sort of business in London—very rich, they say, and all the young men are after the daughters."
"Probably the daughters haven't the same opinion of the young men of the present day that I have," said Mr. Thorne; "so I needn't pity them."
"Fancy your not knowing anything about them! I am surprised!" Mrs. Rawlinson repeated. "Such friends of Mr. Horace Thorne's, too! Ah, by the way, you must mind what you say about the young men who are after them. He's quite a favorite there, I'm told."
"Perhaps Horace told you," the old gentleman suggested with a quiet smile: "the news sounds as if it might come from that authority."