I may as well admit that I had never before enjoyed a stroll so much. It seems a foolish thing for a woman of my years to say, but for the time the business in London Street mattered nothing, the Hilliers at Gloucester Place mattered little. One of my customers met us near the gates of the Park, and rushed at me with an inquiry concerning a Bible box; I sent her off with a direction to call and see Millwood. At the top of the hill, and near the edge where green chairs were placed, we found the elderly couple of the ground floor in Gloucester Place; they were seated there holding each other's hands, and gazing down contentedly at children tumbling about on the slope.
"Miss Weston," said the old gentleman, rising, and saluting with a sweep of his curly brimmed hat, "it needed only your presence to make the afternoon entirely charming. Pray do me the honour to introduce me to your military friend."
I had no reason to be ashamed of the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Some men, in his position, and after a good lunch, might have felt inclined to ridicule the Wintertons; they looked as though they had emerged from past centuries or stepped from a mantelpiece, and, indeed, they ware not exempted from comments and criticism of frivolous young people who went by. But Cartwright listened to Captain Winterton's explanation of the windings of the river, drawn on the gravel with the point of a malacca cane, was deferential to the old lady when she spoke of the highly cultivated society in which she had mixed during early years. She was careful to make no errors in the various branches of any genealogical tree.
"The Admiral," she said, in her precise and leisured way, "perhaps neither of you knew; he was long before your time. But his eldest daughter whom you may have met, she, as I need scarcely say, was a most highly accomplished young woman, playing the harp divinely, and singing 'Juanita' in a manner that caused sensitive hearers to swoon away. She married a Mr. Todhunter, a most humorous gentleman who used to make really wonderful puns, and afterwards took to drink. She, as you are doubtless aware, removed to New Cross, and gave music lessons. The second daughter, whilst less gifted in music, had a passion for making woolwork slippers that you seldom encounter nowadays. Everyone said that she was going to marry a bachelor clergyman of the neighbourhood, but she ran off with her father's coachman. It chanced that I heard some of the Admiral's remarks upon this lamentable occurrence, but not all, because my dear mother intervened and—You didn't have the privilege of knowing my dear mother, Miss Weston, but it will be a delight, some fine day, to shew you her tombstone."
"My love," said Captain Winterton, solicitously.
"My sweet."
"Think of your throat," he begged.
"I was about," remarked the old lady, "to turn up the collar of your overcoat. We are not yet favoured with the balmy weather associated with spring. The Quartermaster-Sergeant," she went on, beaming at Cartwright, "will recall the lines of Mr. Browning that contain an allusion to the present month."
Cartwright jerked his head knowingly, and remarked that poetry was very stimulating if you were but careful not to take too much of it at a time.