"Yes;—so he said. I think he had. But he will go to Oxford, and will of course forget it."
"He is such a nice boy," said Mrs. Wortle, who, in all her anxiety, could not but like the lad the better for having fallen in love with her daughter.
"Yes, mamma; he is. I always liked him. But this is quite out of the question. What would his papa and mamma say?"
"It would be very dreadful to have a quarrel, wouldn't it,—and just at present, when there are so many things to trouble your papa." Though Mrs. Wortle was quite honest and true in the feeling she had expressed as to the young lord's visit, yet she was alive to the glory of having a young lord for her son-in-law.
"Of course it is out of the question, mamma. It has never occurred to me for a moment as otherwise. He has got to go to Oxford and take his degree before he thinks of such a thing. I shall be quite an old woman by that time, and he will have forgotten me. You may be sure, mamma, that whatever I did say to him was quite plain. I wish you could have been here and heard it all, and seen it all."
"My darling," said the mother, embracing her, "I could not believe you more thoroughly even though I saw it all, and heard it all."
That night Mrs. Wortle felt herself constrained to tell the whole story to her husband. It was indeed impossible for her to keep any secret from her husband. When Mary, in her younger years, had torn her frock or cut her finger, that was always told to the Doctor. If a gardener was seen idling his time, or a housemaid flirting with the groom, that certainly would be told to the Doctor. What comfort does a woman get out of her husband unless she may be allowed to talk to him about everything? When it had been first proposed that Lord Carstairs should come into the house as a private pupil she had expressed her fear to the Doctor,—because of Mary. The Doctor had ridiculed her fears, and this had been the result. Of course she must tell the Doctor. "Oh, dear," she said, "what do you think has happened while we were up in London?"
"Carstairs was here."
"Oh, yes; he was here. He came on purpose to make a regular declaration of love to Mary."
"Nonsense."