'You are very oracular.'

She turned to the piano, played a few chords, closed the instrument,
swung herself round on the music stool, and said she should go for a
walk.



CHAPTER VIII



It was Mr Palmer's design to send Frank abroad as soon as he
understood the home trade. It was thought it would be an advantage
to him to learn something of foreign manufacturing processes. Frank
had gladly agreed to go, but he was now rather in the mood for delay.
Mr Palmer conjectured a reason for it, and the conjecture was
confirmed when, after two or three more visits to Fenmarket,
perfectly causeless, so far as business was concerned, Frank asked
for the paternal sanction to his engagement with Madge. Consent was
willingly given, for Mr Palmer knew the family well; letters passed
between him and Mrs Hopgood, and it was arranged that Frank's visit
to Germany should be postponed till the summer. He was now
frequently at Fenmarket as Madge's accepted suitor, and, as the
spring advanced, their evenings were mostly spent by themselves out
of doors. One afternoon they went for a long walk, and on their
return they rested by a stile. Those were the days when Tennyson was
beginning to stir the hearts of the young people in England, and the
two little green volumes had just become a treasure in the Hopgood
household. Mr Palmer, senior, knew them well, and Frank, hearing his