I am a little disappointed, but, as my fondness for my own company is always of the smallest, I am able to smile a sincere welcome.
"It is you, is it ?" I say, with a little intimate nod.

"How did you know where I was ?" "Barbara told me." "_Barbara_, indeed!" (laughing).

"I wish father could hear you." "I am very glad he does not." "And so you found her at home ?" I say, with a feeling of pleased curiosity, as to the details of the interview.

(He cannot well have volunteered the abbey _already_, can he ?) "I suppose I may come in," he says, hardly waiting my permission to jump into the punt, which, however, by reason of the noble broadness of its bottom, is enabled to bid defiance to any such shock.

"She was making a flannel petticoat for an old woman," he goes on, sitting down opposite me, and looking at me from under his hat-brim, with gravely shining eyes; "_herring-boning_, she called it.