For Polly Hopkins had a hundred pounds, as well as being the only child of the man who kept the only shop for pickled pork in Bruntsea.

And my Mr.Stixon could always contrive to get orders from his lordship to send the boy away, with his carriage paid, when his health demanded bathing.

Hence it is manifest that the deeds and thoughts of Bruntsea House, otherwise called "Bruntlands," were known quite as well, and discussed even better--because dispassionately--at Castlewood than and as they were at home.
Now I won forever the heart of Stixon's boy, and that of Polly Hopkins, by recoiling with horror from the thought of going to Bruntsea unattended.

After all my solitary journeys, this might have been called hypocrisy, if it had been inconvenient; but coming as it did, it was pronounced, by all who desired either news or love, to be another proof of the goodness of my heart.
Escorted thus by William Stixon (armed with a brilliant cane bought for this occasion), and knowing that Sir Montague Hockin was not there, I arrived at Bruntlands in the afternoon, and received a kindly welcome from my dear friend Mrs.Hockin.Her husband was from home, and she grieved to say that now he was generally doing this; but nobody else could have any idea what his avocations were! Then she paid me some compliments on my appearance--a thing that I never thought of, except when I came to a question of likeness, or chanced to be thinking of things, coming up as they will, at a looking-glass.
That the Major was out was a truth established in my mind some time ago; because I had seen him, as our fly crawled by, expressly and emphatically at work on a rampart of his own designing.

The work was quite new to me, but not so his figure.