‘I don’t think he is come after all,’ said Miss Stanbury, looking at her watch.  Had the train arrived at the moment that it was due, had the expectant visitor jumped out of the railway carriage into a fly, and had the driver galloped up to the Close, it might have been possible that the wheels should have been at the door as Miss Stanbury spoke.

‘It’s hardly time yet, aunt.’

’Nonsense; it is time.  The train comes in at four.  I dare say he won’t come at all.’

‘He is sure to come, aunt.’

’I’ve no doubt you know all about it better than any one else.  You usually do.’  Then five minutes were passed in silence.  ’Heaven and earth! what shall I do with these people that are coming?  And I told them especially that it was to meet this young man!  It’s the way I am always treated by everybody that I have about me.’

‘The train might be ten minutes late, Aunt Stanbury.’

’Yes and monkeys might chew tobacco.  There, there’s the omnibus at the Cock and Bottle; the omnibus up from the train.  Now, of course, he won’t come.’

‘Perhaps he’s walking, Aunt Stanbury.’

’Walking with his luggage on his shoulders?  Is that your idea of the way in which a London gentleman goes about?  And there are two flies coming up from the train, of course.’  Miss Stanbury was obliged to fix the side of her chair very close to the window in order that she might see that part of the Close in which the vehicles of which she had spoken were able to pass.

‘Perhaps they are not coming from the train, Aunt Stanbury.’

’Perhaps a fiddlestick!  You have lived here so much longer than I have done that, of course, you must know all about it.’  Then there was an interval of another ten minutes, and even Dorothy was beginning to think that Mr Burgess was not coming.  ‘I’ve given him up now,’ said Miss Stanbury.  ‘I think I’ll send and put them all off.’  Just at that moment there came a knock at the door.  But there was no cab.  Dorothy’s conjecture had been right.  The London gentleman had walked, and his portmanteau had been carried behind him by a boy.  ’How did he get here?’ exclaimed Miss Stanbury, as she heard the strange voice speaking to Martha downstairs.  But Dorothy knew better than to answer the question.

‘Miss Stanbury, I am very glad to see you,’ said Mr Brooke Burgess, as he entered the room.  Miss Stanbury courtesied, and then took him by both hands.  ‘You wouldn’t have known me, I dare say,’ he continued.  ’A black beard and a bald head do make a difference.’

‘You are not bald at all,’ said Miss Stanbury.

’I am beginning to be thin enough at the top.  I am so glad to come to you, and so much obliged to you for having me!  How well I remember the old room!’

‘This is my niece, Miss Dorothy Stanbury, from Nuncombe Putney.’  Dorothy was about to make some formal acknowledgment of the introduction, when Brooke Burgess came up to her, and shook her hand heartily.  ‘She lives with me,’ continued the aunt.