They had seen the English country with her. It was more alive to them. They would remember. Dr. von Heber was taking it in, with his best ruminating smile, as a personal possession; seeing it with English eyes. Her last year’s ride through the counties was shared now. It would go to Canada.
“It’s coming all the way from Bakewell .”
“Where will that place be?”
“Oh I don’t know; somewhere; in the north I think. Yorkshire. No, the Peak. The Peak district. Peak Freane. They bake splendidly. The further north you get the better they bake.” The scene was swaying forward into newness. Dr. Winchester suddenly began talking about the historical interest of the neighbourhood. They had all been down to look at the Old Curiosity Shop … there was something about it … and there was a better local story of their kind. She told Mr. Leyton’s story of the passage in Little Gower Place, body snatchers carrying newly buried bodies through it by night from St. Pancras churchyard to the hospital.
“You don’t say so. To think we’ve gone along there this while and not known.”
“That shop in Lincoln’s Inn isn’t the shop Dickens meant. It’s been pulled down. It’s only the site. Some people think Dickens is sentimental.”
“Those who think so are hypercritical. Besides being sentimental don’t prevent him being one of your very greatest men.”
“ You should appreciate him highly. If ever there was any man revealed abuses. … You ought to read our Holmes’ Elsie Venner—We call it his medicated novel over at home” smiled Dr. von Heber. He was speaking low, making a separate conversation. The others were talking together.