domestic details of the table and with whispering severely to the
servants behind her hand, and to listen and look towards the further end
where Sir Thomas sat in his tall chair, his flapped cap on his head, and
talked to his daughters on either side. Mr. Roper, the man who had come
in with Mrs. More, was sitting opposite Ralph, and seemed to be chiefly
occupied in listening too. A bright-looking tall girl, whom her father
had introduced by the name of Cecily, sat between Ralph and her father.

"Not at all," cried Sir Thomas, in answer to something that Ralph did
not catch, "nothing of the kind! It was Juno that screamed. Argus would
not condescend to it. He was occupied in dancing before the bantams."

Ralph lost one of the few remarks that Mrs. More addressed to him, in
wondering what this meant, and the conversation at the other end swept
round a corner while he was apologising. When he again caught the
current Sir Thomas was speaking of wherries.

"I would love to row a wherry," he said. "The fellows do not know their
fortune; they might lead such sweet meditative lives; they do not, I am
well aware, for I have never heard such blasphemy as I have heard from
wherrymen. But what opportunities are theirs! If I were not your father,
my darling, I would be a wherryman. _Si cognovisses et tu quae ad pacem
tibi_! Mr. Torridon, would you not be a wherryman if you were not Mr.
Torridon?"

"I thought not this morning," said Ralph, "as I came here. It seemed hot
rowing against the stream."

"It is part of the day's work," said More. "When I was Chancellor I
loved nothing more than a hot summer's day in Court, for I thought of my