said Kate.
“You would enjoy that,” said Dr Mitford. “Downy is sure to be there from Oxford, and I should not wonder if he gave a lecture on it. He is one of the very great guns. He understands mo{114}re about it than almost any man in England, I must say, to do him justice. But almost is not all, my dear Miss Crediton; and when you see a man setting himself up for an authority in presence of others who——” Here the Doctor stopped, and laughed a conscious complacent laugh; by which Kate perceived that Dr Mitford himself was a greater authority still, or at least thought he was.
{114}
“It is very funny,” said Kate, “but I shall be better off going with you than if I had half-a-dozen archæological societies. I feel quite sure of that.”
“Well, well, we must not brag,” said Dr Mitford, waving his white hand softly. “This camp, you must know, was one of the camps of Agricola, which he made on his journey northwards. It is constructed——”
And so the narrative went on. Kate kept looking up at him with her bright eyes, and said yes, and said no, and made herself very agreeable; but I cannot undertake to say that she was much the better for it. In the first place, she took no interest whatever in Roman camps, and then she had a good deal on her mind. What was John about all this time? W{115}hy did not he manage to get into the phaeton in his father’s place, and drive her? If the horse had not been the meekest and most long-suffering of animals, Kate felt that there must have been another running away, and another accident. And her recent experience had made her nervous. When she had received an immense deal of information about the castrum which she was going with so little enthusiasm to visit, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a group of turrets among the trees, and gave a start, which made Dr Mitford and his horse swerve aside, and shook the hood of the phaeton so that it nearly descended upon the party, burying them alive.
{115}
“Oh, there is Westbrook, where the Huntleys live!” cried Kate. “I beg your pardon, Dr Mitford, I am sure. Mrs Mitford said we were to call. Don’t you think we had better go now, in case they should be out? There was a message, you know, that you were to give.”
“Oh, about croquet,” said the Doctor, and his brow was slightly ruffled. He would not allow, {116}even to himself, that his instruction was slighted; but still he felt that she had been able to see the towers of Westbrook at the very
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