"My father seems to have been sorry he couldn't buy it. He seemed to think it might still be sold."
"Surely you've got enough! And, for my part, I should much prefer the Priory. It's muggy down there in the valley—though I believe it's a very fine house."
"You've not been there?"
"No. We of the Priory have had small dealings with Fillingford lately. We've kept up the forms of civility—but it's been very distant. Underneath, there's been a kind of silent feud—well, more or less silent; but I daresay that'll be all over now."
"My father wrote 'Possibly you in your way may succeed better than I in mine.'"
"Fillingford wouldn't sell. He's hard up, but he can get along. And there's always the chance of a rich marriage for his son—or even for himself."
I really spoke without any thought of a personal reference, but I perceived, directly afterward, that I might well seem to have made one; a marriage with Miss Driver would be undoubtedly rich. She gave no sign, however, of taking my remark in that sense, unless any inference can be drawn from her saying, "Oh, he's a widower?"
"He's a widower of forty, or a year or two more—and he's got a son of about seventeen—a very good-looking lad. His sister, Lady Sarah Lacey, keeps house for him, and according to local gossip is a bit of a shrew."
She began to laugh as she said with a mock sigh, "One's too old for me, and the other's too young—they must look somewhere else, I'm afraid! And then—how should I get on with the shrew? I'm rather a shrew myself—at least I've been told so."
"You'd better let them alone," I counseled her with a smile.