"Older than you!" exclaimed Lionel, staring in blunt amaze at the
elderly-looking personage beside him; "yet true, he told me so himself."

"And I am fifty-one last birthday." "Mr. Darrell fifty-two! Incredible!"

"I don't know why we should ever grow old, the life we lead," observed
Mr. Fairthorn, readjusting his spectacles. "Time stands so still!
Fishing, too, is very conducive to longevity. If you will follow me, we
will get the rods; and the flute,--you are quite sure you would like the
flute? Yes! thank you, my dear young sir. And yet there are folks who
prefer the fiddle!"

"Is not the sun a little too bright for the fly at present; and will you
not, in the meanwhile, show me over the house?"

"Very well; not that this house has much worth seeing. The other indeed
would have had a music-room! But, after all, nothing like the open air
for the flute. This way."

I spare thee, gentle reader, the minute inventory of Fawley Manor House.
It had nothing but its antiquity to recommend it. It had a great many
rooms, all, except those used as the dining-room and library, very small,
and very low,--innumerable closets, nooks,--unexpected cavities, as if
made on purpose for the venerable game of hide-and-seek. Save a stately
old kitchen, the offices were sadly defective even for Mr. Darrell's
domestic establishment, which consisted but of two men and four maids
(the stablemen not lodging in the house). Drawing-room properly speaking
that primitive mansion had none. At some remote period a sort of gallery
under the gable roofs (above the first floor), stretching from end to end
of the house, might have served for the reception of guests on grand