Charlie's eyes twinkled.
"Would your friends ask me to tea, if I brought them some fish? It's dull work having one's meals in the musty inn parlour."
"You had better catch your fish first," suggested Jean.
Barbara looked surprised, when later on Jean appeared with her cousin, but she welcomed him warmly, and when Mick came in, Charlie and he plunged into farming matters with such zest and earnestness, that Jean and the sisters left them to talk and smoke together.
"Did you know Mr. Oxton was coming down here?" asked Barbara quietly of Jean.
"Of course not. I should have told you, if I had. He is a nice boy, and has knocked about in the Colonies so long that it has given him that blunt, downright manner."
"Is he the one who has ousted you of your grandfather's money?" asked Chris.
"That is hardly the way to put it," Jean replied. "My grandfather disinherited me before he came on the scene at all."
"She'll marry him," Chris said to her sister that night when they had retired to their bedroom that they shared together. "And it will be a nice match. I can tell from the way he looks at her that he is in love."
Barbara smiled.