Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/126

 "He lives in the woods. Yet he understands art better than any man I know."

"There's nothing extraordinary. He is a highly educated man. The doctors tell him he can't live except in the pine woods, but his two rooms in his log cabin are more comfortable than any I have at Malvern."

"By the way, you have never invited me to Malvern. I used to go there as a girl."

Pembroke remembered a speech of his friend's, Mrs. Peyton, to him some time before.

"Ah, my dear French," she had said, "what a dear, sweet, amiable creature your mother was—and your father was a regular Trojan when he was roused. I remember taking Eliza there for a visit once, when she was growing up, and the singing mania had just possessed her. She sung all day and nearly all night—screech, screech—bang, bang on the piano. Your father almost danced, he was so mad—but your dear mother was all thoughtfulness. 'My dear Sally,' she would say every day laughing. 'Don't feel badly about Eliza's singing, and the way Mr. Pembroke takes it. It is the only chance John Cave has to say a word to Elizabeth.' Your mother was highly in favor of that match, I can tell you, though John had no great fortune—and your father was so fond of him too, that he really imagined John was courting him, instead of Elizabeth. But I shortened my visit considerably, I assure you."

All this flashed through Pembroke's mind when