Flower and he had taken to each
other. Nor, as he presently found, were Mr. Flower's interests limited
to horses.
"You're a reader, I see," he said, presently, when they had returned to
the office. "Well, I don't get much time to read nowadays; but there's
nothing I enjoy better, when I've got a pipe lit of an evening, than to
sit and listen to my little daughter reading Thackeray or
George Eliot."
Of course Henry was interested.
"Now there was a woman who knew country life," Mr. Flower continued.
"'Silas Marner,' or 'Adam Bede.' How wonderfully she gets at the very
heart of the people! And not only that, but the very smell of
country air."
And Mr. Flower drew a long breath of longing for Miller's Dale.
Henry mentally furbished up his George Eliot to reply.
"And 'The Mill on the Floss'?" he said.
"And 'Scenes from Clerical Life,'" said Mr. Flower. "There are some rare
strokes of nature there."
And so they went on comparing notes, till a little blue-eyed girl of
about seventeen appeared, carrying a dainty lunch for Henry, and telling
Mr. Flower that his own lunch was ready.
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