"To Melbourne, I presume?" insinuated this little monster, with an arch smile. Rachel, the colour of a peony, lifted her head an inch nearer to the ceiling.
"I only heard last night," he continued, rubbing his hands, and looking a whole volume of vulgar pleasantries, "that the redoubtable Kingston has been vanquished at last, and that it is to your bow and spear that he has fallen. Allow me to congratulate you, Miss Fetherstonhaugh."
"To congratulate him, I should think you mean," broke in Mr. Dalrymple, who was studying the effect of sunset on a picture of the Adelonga homestead and pulling his moustaches violently. "Hadn't we better go and wash our hands, Digby, and make ourselves more fit for ladies' company?"
"To congratulate him, too, certainly," said Mr. Hale; "very much so, of course. But still it is a great conquest on the part of Miss Fetherstonhaugh. Perhaps you don't know Kingston?"
"I have not that honour," replied Mr. Dalrymple stiffly; and the tone of his voice strongly implied that he did not in the least degree desire it.
"Well, I do; and I know that he has openly defied the combined powers of her charming sex for—I am afraid to say how many years—as long as I can remember."
"I daresay that has not distressed them," said Mr. Dalrymple.
"Come, come, Hale," said Mr. Digby, who thought his kinsman's allusion to Mr. Kingston's age a terrible slip of the tongue; "let us go and wash our hands. Come along, Lessel."
"And my wife tells me," continued the irrepressible little man, "that the—a—the interesting event is to take place very shortly!"
Rachel came out of her majestic reticence with a rush that astonished everybody.