She’s by far too fond of him to try to thrust him down any path he doesn’t wish to follow—and has too much commonsense as well. Poor Aunt Lindeth! I do most sincerely pity her! She was obliged to abandon her efforts to bring her husband into fashion, for he despised nothing more; and to discover now that Julian, who has all in his favour to blossom into a Pink of the Ton, is as bored by such stuff as ever his father was is really very hard.”

“I think the better of him for it,” declared George. “To own the truth, I always looked to see him trying to follow in your steps! Well, if she does let him go with you next week, take care he don’t fall into mischief—unless you have a fancy for getting your eyes scratched out!”

“None at all! Are you apprehensive that he will form an attachment to a milkmaid? Or set the countryside by the ears? You terrify me, George!”

“No, no!” George said, chuckling. “It’s you who will do that! Well, I don’t mean you’ll set ’em all by the ears precisely, but, lord, what a flutter there will be when they find the Nonesuch amongst ’em!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, George—!” said Sir Waldo, withdrawing his hand abruptly from his cousin’s arm. “Don’t talk such nonsense! If I were a betting man, I’d lay you odds against the chance that anyone at Oversett has ever heard of me!”

Chapter 2

Neither prophecy hit the mark, but, in the event Mr Wingham came nearer to it than Sir Waldo. Broom Hall belonged to a country parish whose centre was the village of Oversett, situated in the West Riding, rather closer to Leeds than to Harrogate, and not above twenty miles from York; and although the majority of the Reverend John Chartley’s parishioners knew nothing about Sir Waldo, and several elderly gentlemen, such as Squire Mickleby, took very little interest in any member of the Corinthian set, amongst the ladies, and the younger gentlemen, a good deal of excitement was felt.