abundantly tedious, thin, and small.  One talked down to him, worthy gentleman, as one would to his son Harry.  These were the neighbours that had been.  What wonder that the hill was steep, and the way long, and the common dreary?  Then came pleasant thoughts of the neighbours that were to be.  The lovely and accomplished wife, so sweet and womanly; the elegant and highly-informed husband, so spirited and manly!  Art and literature, and wisdom and wit, adorning with a wreathy and garlandy splendour all that is noblest in mind and purest in heart!  What wonder that Hatherden became more and more interesting in its anticipated charms, and that I went gaily about the place, taking note of all that could contribute to the comfort of its future inhabitants.

Home I came, a glad and busy creature, revolving in my mind the wants of the house and their speediest remedies—­new paper for the drawing-room; new wainscoting for the dining parlour; a stove for the laundry; a lock for the wine-cellar; baizing the door of the library; and new painting the hall;—­to say nothing of the grand design of Clarke and the flower-beds.

So full was I of busy thoughts, and so desirous to put my plans in train without the loss of a moment, that although the tossing of apples had now resolved itself into a most irregular game of cricket—­George Copley being batting at one wicket, with little Sam Roper for his mate at the other;—­Sam, an urchin of seven years old, but the son of an old player, full of cricket blood, born, as it were, with a bat in his hand, getting double the notches of his tall partner—­an indignity which that well-natured stripling bore with surprising good humour; and although the opposite side consisted of Susan Wheeler bowling at one end, her old competitor of the ragged jacket at the other, and one urchin in trousers, and one in petticoats, standing out; in spite of the temptation of watching this comical parody on that manly exercise, rendered doubly amusing by the scientific manner in which little Sam stood at his wicket, the perfect gravity of the fieldsman in petticoats, and the serious air with which these two worthies called Susan to order whenever she transgressed any rule of the game:—­Sam will certainly be a great player some day or other, and so (if he be not a girl, for really there’s no telling) will the young gentleman standing out.  In spite, however, of the great temptation of overlooking a favourite divertisement, with variations so truly original, home we went, hardly pausing to observe the housing of Master Keep’s wheat harvest.  Home we went, adding at every step a fresh story to our Castle in the Air, anticipating happy mornings and joyous evenings at dear Hatherden;—­in love with the place and all about it, and quite convinced that the hill was nothing, the distance nothing, and the walk by far the prettiest in the neighbourhood.