'
Duchess Susan opened her eyes. 'Four miles from home! And what did his
mother do to him?'
'Tommy's mama,' said Mr. Beamish, and with the resplendent licence of the
period which continued still upon tolerable terms with nature under the
compromise of decorous 'Oh-fie!' flatly declared the thing she did.
'I fancy, sir, that I caught sight of your figure on the hill yonder
about an hour or so earlier,' said Caseldy to Mr. Camwell.
'If it was at the time when you were issuing from that wood, sir, your
surmise is correct,' said the young gentleman.
'You are long-sighted, sir!'
'I am, sir.'
'And so am I.'
'And I,' said Chloe.
'Our Chloe will distinguish you accurately at a mile, and has done it,'
observed Mr. Beamish.
'One guesses tiptoe on a suspicion, and if one is wrong it passes, and if
one is right it is a miracle,' she said, and raised her voice on a song
to quit the subject.
'Ay, ay, Chloe; so then you had a suspicion, you rogue, the day we had
the pleasure of meeting the duchess, had you?' Mr. Beamish persisted.
Duchess Susan interposed. 'Such a pretty song! and you to stop her,
sir!'
Caseldy took up the air.
'Oh, you two together!' she cried. 'I do love hearing music in the
fields; it is heavenly. Bands in the town and voices in the green
fields, I say! Couldn't you join Chloe, Mr .... Count, sir, before we
come among the people, here where it 's all so nice and still.
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