human
Oh, it is not settled yet, but the two Professors are coming to us some time soon, I believe, and Professor Theobald will look over the house and see if he thinks it would be too unmanageably big for himself and his old mother and sister. I hope he will take the place. He would bring a new and interesting element into the village. What do you think of it, Mrs. Temperley?
gpt
Oh, I hope the learned and amusing Professor will come, she said.
human
The worst of it is, from my point of view, that I shall have to give up my practices there. Professor Fortescue allows me to wake the old piano from its long slumbers in the drawing-room.
gpt
Oh, of course. Marion Jordan was telling me that she was quite startled the other day, in crossing the Priory garden, to hear music stealing out of the apparently deserted house. She had heard the country people say that the ghost of poor Mrs. Fortescue walks along the terrace in the twilight, and Marion looked quite scared when she came in, for the music seemed to come from the drawing-room, where its mistress used to play so much after she was first married. I almost wonder you can sit alone there in the dusk, considering the dreadful associations of the place.
human
I am used to it now, Mrs. Temperley replied,
gpt
Well, that is certainly a blessing, cried Lady Engleton.
human
I think I shall ask Professor Fortescue to allow me also to go to the Priory to pursue my art in peace and quietness; a truly hyperborean state, beyond the region of visitors!
gpt
There would be plenty of room for a dozen unsociable monomaniacs like ourselves,
human
I imagine you are a God-send to poor Mrs. Williams, the caretaker, said Joseph Fleming.
gpt
She is my gamekeeper's sister, and I hear that she finds the solitude in that vast house almost more than she can stand.
human
Poor woman! said Lady Engleton.
gpt
Well, Mr. Fleming, what are the sporting prospects this autumn?