Читать книгу Miss Bunting онлайн

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"Adams? Adams? Now where have I heard that name?" said Dr. Dale.

No one offered an opinion.

"I have it!" said Dr. Dale. "He is a member of the Barsetshire Archæological Society, though why I cannot think, for he has no tincture of learning or any kind of letters. But he sent a handsome donation to our President Lord Pomfret's appeal for the excavations in that field on Lord Stoke's property where Vikings are supposed to be buried--Bloody Meadow. I believe Tebben, the Icelandic man over at Worsted, thought highly of some bones they found."

"Tebben," said Jane. "That's the man you said was offered a job at Adams's works, wasn't it, Laura?"

"Not the Icelandic one," said Mrs. Morland. "That's the father. It's the son, Richard, that Mrs. Tebben was talking about."

"Dr. Madeleine Sparling, the headmistress of the Hosiers' Girls' Foundation School," said Miss Bunting, while a reverent hush fell on the room, "with whom I have the pleasure of being slightly acquainted, told me, when we met at Lady Graham's one day, that she had under her charge a girl called Heather Adams, whose father was self-made and owned a large engineering works. This girl, she said, though with no particular background, had what amounted to a distinct talent for the higher form of mathematics, and was sitting for a scholarship at Newton College."