"Yes, my dear, yes," said the old gentleman, "I dare say I did. It is
human to err, my dear, especially about dinner on a fine evening.
Besides, I have made amends and brought you a visitor, our new
neighbour, Colonel Quaritch. Colonel Quaritch, let me introduce you to
my daughter, Miss de la Molle."
"I think that we have met before," said Harold, in a somewhat nervous
fashion, as he stretched out his hand.
"Yes," answered Ida, taking it, "I remember. It was in the long drift,
five years ago, on a windy afternoon, when my hat blew over the hedge
and you went to fetch it."
"You have a good memory, Miss de la Molle," said he, feeling not a
little pleased that she should have recollected the incident.
"Evidently not better than your own, Colonel Quaritch," was the ready
answer. "Besides, one sees so few strangers here that one naturally
remembers them. It is a place where nothing happens--time passes, that
is all."
Meanwhile the old Squire, who had been making a prodigious fuss with
his hat and stick, which he managed to send clattering down the flight
of stone steps, departed to get ready, saying in a kind of roar as he
went that Ida was to order in the dinner, as he would be down in a
minute.
Accordingly she rang the bell, and told the maid to bring in the soup
in five minutes and to lay another place.
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