He could generally attract children, and Peter was already well inclined toward him, for he had shown himself to be knowing about a country boy's pleasures; also he knew all about the little Mortimers and their doings.
Brandon wished to see Melcombe, even to examine some parts of the house and grounds, and he wanted if possible to hear something more about the ghost story; but it did not suit him to betray any special interest.

So he left it to work its way to the surface if it would.

It was not the business he had come about, but he had undertaken to transact that, on purpose because it gave him a chance of looking at the place.
This was the deep glen, then, that he had heard Valentine speak of?
"Yes; and mother says the old uncle Mortimer (that one who lived at Wigfield) improved it so much; he had so many trees thinned out, and a pond dug where there used to be a swamp.

We've got some carp in that pond.

Do you think, if I fed them, they would get tame ?" Brandon told some anecdote of certain carp that he had seen abroad, and then asked-- "Do you like the glen, my boy--is it a favourite place of yours ?" "Pretty well," answered Peter.